


Witness

by raynon



Series: mom: we have unholyverse at home. unholyverse: [2]
Category: Martyrs (2008), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Friendship, Internal Conflict, M/M, Minor character suicide, More pining!, More plant-based themes & imagery this time, Off-screen torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27190975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raynon/pseuds/raynon
Summary: “Got any tips for five guys living in a van together?”She burst out laughing. “That sounds like an adventure! Man, I wanna know what you guys do!”
Relationships: Ray Toro/Mikey Way
Series: mom: we have unholyverse at home. unholyverse: [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962781
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	Witness

**Author's Note:**

> ooooooooh MAN this was a challenge!!! my longest-form oneshot to date, and i'm proud of myself for getting through it! if you're not aware already, this is set in [bexless's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bexless/pseuds/Bexless) series [Unholyverse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/9795), between the first and second pieces in the story. but this time, ray gets the spotlight :0
> 
> i'd like to take the opportunity to thank maddy [ophelias_ink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophelias_ink/pseuds/ophelias_ink), first and foremost, whom without her constant support, i probably never would have finished this at all. i can't properly express how much all our screaming and shooting ideas back and forth means to me. she honestly made this story into something i'm confident in posting here. (her fic's now included in this series!!!!!!! :D) i also want to thank vyn [runandgo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/runandgo/pseuds/runandgo), whose own fic [Inexhaustible Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23926531) was, unintentionally, the biggest catalyst and inspiration for me writing this at all. so please read that! (you can consider this fic an au of her au. which is an au of uhv's au 🥴) and thanks to leo for doing some light beta reading towards the beginning of this!

A smooth vibration against Mikey’s hip roused him from sleep. He stirred slowly, his eyes taking a few seconds to open as his senses kicked on, one after the other.

The sun warmed the side of his face that was pressed up against the window, his hair stuck to his temple with the aid of the oils from his face, and his spine was sore from sleeping crookedly. The engine of the van was rumbling. Bob and Brian’s voices were exchanging to each other, though he was still just out of it enough not to pick up the words they were saying. They were in motion again. Smacking his lips slightly, he started to scowl at the stale film over his tongue, and the rubbery, dirty smell of the van and its inhabitants didn’t help in the slightest.

Mikey wanted coffee. He wanted his hair fixed, because sleeping against the window always fucked it up royally. “Ray--” he grumbled, and then the vibrating feeling over his hip distracted him again. As he pulled his phone out, he did a double-take. It was Ray who was calling him. “Ray?” he called out again, and suddenly Bob and Brian went dead silent.

“SHIT!” they both exclaimed.

Mikey’s brow knotted hard as he answered his phone. “Ray,” he said for the third time. “Uh...”

“H-hey...” Ray stammered back. “So, I know this is gonna sound kind of stupid, but where’s, uh, the van? Did you guys move it?”

“Oh my god, Ray, I’m so sorry--” Bob cut in before Mikey could respond.

“Fuck. How did we even--” Frank’s voice piped up from behind Mikey, causing Mikey to turn and look at the back of the van where Frank and Gerard had open books scattered across their laps. Gerard’s face was pale, his hands covering his mouth and his eyes bugged.

Mikey bit his tongue. “So, we fucked up. But we’re gonna fix it, like, ASAP.”

“You left already.” Ray’s voice had a grim finality to it. A heavy sigh caused Ray’s end of the line to crackle. “Okay, whatever. We’re all exhausted.”

“Ray, don’t-- it’s okay to be mad. We’re on our way back now,” Mikey tried to reason, and he leaned forward to tap Bob in the ear. “The fuck is wrong with you?!” he hissed before turning his attention to the phone again. “Are you okay?”

“My dignity’s a little wounded, but I’ll recover.”

Everyone in the van except Mikey started talking all at once, Bob apologizing for getting caught up in directions, Brian yelling at Bob, and Frank and Gerard sort of arguing at both each other and themselves.

“Everyone, shut up!” Mikey barked. He clapped his free hand over his eyes. “They’re all really sorry, Ray.” The chorus of the van repeated their apologies.

“Whatever. Worse things have happened,” Ray answered with a smile that just sounded forced. “How long until you guys get back?”

“Um, God, the next exit is probably 30 minutes from here?” Brian groaned.

“An hour, approx,” Mikey translated. “Ray--”

“Really. I’m not mad. I’m already laughing about it,” Ray cut him off. “But I’m drinking your coffee as payment.”

“Aw, come on! I was asleep, I was the only one who had a legitimate excuse!” Mikey whined.

Ray chuckled. “I’m kidding, but it’s gonna be cold by the time you get here. I’ll see you in an hour, then.”

“Yeah.” The van fell silent in awkwardness, save for Mikey’s voice. “See ya then.”

Ray hung up, just holding his phone a few inches from his ear for a minute before finally letting his hand drop to his side. His eyes fell from staring out at the massive parking lot to the coffee cup in his other hand, swirling it around slowly to feel the heat inside slosh against the cardboard, the heat sliding against his fingers.

He did his best to ignore the dull ache in his chest by stepping away from the food court and over to a small area labeled as the ‘scenic view’ with picnic benches dispersed throughout it. Identifying the species of trees helped ebb the current situation further; mostly pine and fir, but there were a lot more bushes that spread between them. As he got closer, he sat down beside one of the bushes and tugged a branch closer.

Dill. He  _ was _ running pretty low on dill; it was a main ingredient for when he needed to get a demon or an evil spirit away fast. Getting lost in the process of plucking the flowers off the edges of the stems was sort of hypnotic in itself, and peeling the leaves below, but he knew he couldn’t carry too much with him. All his vials were in his kit, and that never came out with him when they hit up rest stops. Ray would rather be the one left behind instead of his kit any time.

Picking dill had only managed to take up about 15 minutes before he decided it would get wasteful if he plucked at the bush even more, so he collected his current harvest and slid it as gently as he could in his pocket, and moved on. He could spot mint leaves growing around the roots of the pine trees, and while those had a lot less value in spells, they still tasted pretty good. It was worth it to have any decent taste lingering in his mouth when he could get the chance, anyway.

And yet, picking mint leaves took even less time. The clock on his phone annoyingly reminded him that he still had about 35 minutes to wait around. Desperate to keep his hands busy and stagnant thoughts out of his brain, he wound up stripping off the ends of pine branches, then pulling them even further apart until he could start tying them up in knot after knot.

It was a more soothing activity to him; a childhood pastime he used to occupy himself with when he found himself alone on playgrounds. He seeped into brighter thoughts, listing five things that were good about where he was at that moment. One, it was a really nice day out, and he tied another knot. Two, he found more dill. Another knot. Three, his friends felt really bad about this-- no, that didn’t translate as a  _ good _ thing. His fingers stilled and the corners of his mouth twisted with uncertainty. Shit, he had to be able to think of  _ something _ else.

Three, Frank’s pitiful double ear infection is finally gone. That shit was throwing him off his equilibrium for three days straight, poor dude, so it was good that it finally simmered down. Another knot. Four, they were on their way to another job. Or, at least they would be after this fiasco. Another knot. Five...five... _ come on, Toro, it’s not that hard _ . Five--

Five, there was a pretty lady walking toward him. The gnarled bark slipped through his fingers and he couldn’t help but glance around, surely she couldn’t have been approaching him, but she was. Her stark white dress with a floral lace overlay complimented her dark complexion well, though his attention fell to how exquisite her braids were. They rested perfectly on her shoulders, adorned with tiny golden cuffs and daisy charms. He suddenly wished he had the time to learn how to braid hair like that.

“Hi there!” Her voice was bright, her smile brighter. Pastel-polish adorned nails waved at him when she finally stopped. “Mind if I join you?”

Ray wanted to look around again, but he couldn’t pull his gaze away from her. “Sure?” he started off, and stammered. “I’m not actually, like, doing anything. I--”

“Oh-- yeah, no. That’s fine.” She paused to huff at herself. “Is it fine? I just realized, I completely invited myself into your space.”

His lips parted, but he was silent at first. Maybe Gerard’s divine approachability was starting to rub off on the whole group, because  _ nobody _ had just wandered up to him out of the blue before. But before he left her question hanging for too long, he snapped back to reality. “I’m Ray.” He extended a hand, but then quickly pulled it back. “Sorry. Pine sap.”

She chuckled and reached out for his hand anyway. “It’s great to meet you, Ray. I’m Chrys. Where did you drive from?”

“Uh, Tulsa.” Ray still got amused at the fact that they had to fight a tulpa in Tulsa. “But originally we’re from Jersey.”

It was her turn to look around. “You’re with friends?”

Ray paused again.  _ Dammit. _ “Uh-- yeah, they...” He cast his face downward and picked anxiously at a cuticle. “They’re around. Just stretching and stuff, we’ve had a pretty long night so I stepped away to unwind a little.” The last thing he wanted to let on was how pathetic was that his friends fucking  _ forgot _ him.

“Bad long night?” she asked quietly.

“No. No no, nothing like that. Just...long, you know?”

“I know.” She nodded sagely, and it gave Ray an odd feeling like maybe she really  _ does _ know.

“Where’re you from?” Ray asked back.

“Just rolled in from Memphis, but I’m from Vermont. I’m a traveling reader.” She held herself with pride as she spoke. Her grin made the apples of her cheeks swell a little, and suddenly Ray was staring all over again.

“Reading as in...I guess psychic readings and stuff?”

“Yeah, exactly!”

Ray couldn’t help but smile back. “Cool, that’s really brave of you. I assume you do this all by yourself?”

She nudged a nearby rock with her cyan tennis shoe. “Yeah, but living in a van isn’t all that dangerous. Once you know what you’re doing, anyway. And I’m a pro now.”

He snorted. “Got any tips for five guys living in a van together?”

Chrys burst out laughing. “That sounds like an adventure! Man, I wanna know what  _ you _ guys do!”

He stammered again, and right as he began stumbling over some vague lie, he heard his name being cried out. Before he knew it, Frank had him pinned against the tree he previously leaned on. Frank’s arms were dangling off Ray’s shoulders, both knees bent so his feet were at least a foot off the ground. “...We’re just road tripping,” Ray sighed, and spread his stance slightly so it was easier to brace Frank’s added weight.

“Ray, dude, I’m so sorry. We all are--”

“Frank, shut up.” Ray gently patted him on the back, though there was a new sharpness to his tone. “Uh...Chrys, this is Frank. And Mikey.”

Mikey strolled up with his thumbs in his pockets. “You okay, Ray?”

“Jesus, guys, I told you, I’m fine,” Ray sighed. “Mikey, your coffee’s over there. It’s still kinda warm.”

Mikey spotted the cup on an empty picnic table. “You’re amazing.”

“We’ll never leave you behind again.” Frank’s feet were touching the ground again, and he finally backed up. Now, though, he could see how flushed Ray’s face had gotten, and he turned to finally get a good look at the stranger.

“...It was an accident,” Ray explained on their behalf, and he shied away from the subtle look of pity cast in his direction. Taking a step toward Mikey, he automatically reached up to smooth down a cowlick.

Chrys’s gaze stuck to Mikey. Her eyes widened slightly, and she turned her body fully toward him. “Mikey’s your boyfriend?”

Frank giggled. “Ray and Mikey...as if.”

Mikey, whether he saw Ray’s nostrils flare and bite back a frown or not, clicked his tongue in annoyance at Frank. “Nah, it’s not like that. Ray’s way too good for the likes of me, but I am privileged enough to get my hair done by him.”

Before Chrys had the chance to ask further questions, Ray cleared his throat in a way that signaled Frank and Mikey to cut the shit. “We should probably get back now, huh? Gerard has a schedule to keep.”

“Oh, hey--” Chrys raised her index finger, then let it curl down to her palm. “This is sort of embarrassing, but, uh, I have a flat tire.”

In the back of Ray’s head, that made more sense to him. Why else would someone as pretty as her approach him other than being in need of some help? Not that it mattered, regardless, though he caught the way her face changed when she first saw Mikey, and the relief she tried to hide at the prospects of Mikey being single. Not that Ray really wanted anything from her, but shit, sometimes he’d give up an organ to have someone look at him like that.

No. Scratch that. That thought was selfish and misogynistic, and he mentally crushed the envy down. “Uh, we’ll have to ask Brian, but yeah. We could probably help out with that.”

“Come meet Brian. He’s cool.” Mikey tipped his head in the direction of their van, and Chrys slid in right next to Mikey as they walked.

“Tough luck, Toro.” Frank rocked back on his heels. “Maybe next time?”

Ray rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Frank.”

Gerard leaned on the van’s open door, bouncing anxiously on his heels. “Do you think he’ll be really mad? We should think of some way to make it up to him.”

Brian took a deep breath. “Ray is sort of like you, Father, when it comes to anger and violence. So you tell me, would you forgive us if you were in his situation?”

“Of course!” Gerard huffed quietly. “Okay. I’ll dial down the worry.” He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and instantly recognized the silhouette of his brother. Seeing the other two brought relief, and a slight bit of anxiety, but he turned to Brian in confusion with the new face.

Brian merely braced himself.

“Hey, so...this is Chrys. She kept me company while I was waiting for you guys.” Okay, so maybe Ray found a  _ little _ catharsis in their guilty expressions. “She just needs help changing out a flat. We can spare 10 more minutes, right?”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” She held her hand out to Gerard. “Let me guess. You’re Brian?”

Pink flushed across the tips of Gerard’s ears. “Ah, no. Sorry.” He shook her hand gently. “I’m Gerard. That tough guy is Brian.”

“Gerard’s my brother.” Mikey sidled up next to him, and earned a light hair ruffle, to Ray’s dismay. “And over there’s Bob.”

“A brother and a Father, huh?” Chrys gestured to Gerard’s collar. “A very cool group of people here.”

“You said your tire’s busted?” Brian asked. “Yeah, that’s an easy fix. We got time.”

“Great! I already have a jack and everything, and my van’s just over a bit that way.” Chrys gestured to the right end of the parking lot. “Thank you guys so much. You’re really life savers.”

“Wish we heard that more often...” Frank mumbled. Gerard shot him a look. Frank pretended not to understand what the look meant.

Everyone hopped in the van with the sliding door still open, Chrys included, and Bob drove the van down the parking lot without putting his foot on the gas pedal. “Alright, let’s get to work.”

Chrys perked up when she saw the back of the van, and at the same time, she cringed. Man, they needed some organization, though she couldn’t help but wonder what all the books were about. Above the back door were binder clips hot glued to the ceiling, and some had flowers hung upside-down from them.

“Chrys?” Bob caught her attention, causing her to jump.

“Oh! So sorry.” She scrambled back over to her van and unlocked the spare tire off her back door. On the inside of the door was a small tool kit, and she fished around for a jack and wrench. “I can’t thank you guys enough for this, really.”

Ray slid his hands in his pockets as he got closer. “Oh my god. You have a sink. She has her own  _ sink _ in here, how?!”

She chuckled and stepped around to open her side doors. “Sit down, I’ll show you.” Crawling over to the sink compartment, she opened the cabinets underneath it and showed him her DIY water filtration system. It made Ray miss the old shop in a weird way. He missed being able to wash hair.

Mikey didn’t get too close at first, but he felt drawn to get closer. After Chrys and Ray stood up again, Mikey reached down to touch the step, and his brow knotted. Under his fingertips, he could just feel the plywood and vinyl, and it left his skin chilled. A heavy weight fell on his stomach, like he’d swallowed a barbell. He laid his hand flat against the floor without thinking, and his veins itched under his skin until he let the hand fall to his side again. Something either had happened in this van, or something  _ was _ going to happen. He had the worst hunch that it was the latter.

“You like the floor? I insulated it myself,” Chrys preened, pulling Mikey out of his headspace.

“You’re really talented,” Mikey answered, though his voice seemed more automatic.

“Seriously! This is so beauti...ful...” Gerard was beaming as he took in the soft interior until he noticed Mikey’s face, and his brow twitched.

Mikey pushed his glasses up his nose and sniffled.

Gerard seemed pensive for a second, then he nodded.

Chrys blinked as she watched the brothers use telepathy, smiling with intrigue. Mikey turned to her and actually smiled for the first time, not just giving her a passive glance. A real, albeit small, smile.

Ray glanced at Gerard, who seemed concerned until he relaxed his features. His fingers, still half in his pockets, wiggled around slightly where he still felt the dill blossoms. Without putting too much thought into it, he pinched off a few blooms and shifted his focus to Chrys. “Hey, so, I know we’re gonna be parting ways soon, but, uh, these are known to be sort of good luck charms.” It was sort of true, anyway, but he thought  _ warding off evil _ sounded a tad too ominous.

Either way, she was delighted and took the flowers. The stems were just long enough to sit securely in her braids. “Thank you! That’s...really sweet of you. D’you know a lot about flowers?”

“Ray Toro, expert traveling herbalist and hairdresser,” Gerard chimed in. “You’d be surprised how often a man with those skillsets really saves the day.”

Chrys looked like she was dying to sit them down for an interview, but she held herself back.

“If, uh, Frank and Bob have the tire situation handled, I think I’m just gonna go check on my kit. I got stuff to add to it.” Ray suddenly felt like he was crowding the scene when he glanced at Mikey, and took a step back. “It was such a pleasure crossing paths with you, Chrys.”

“I guess you guys have to get going soon, huh?” Chrys pouted. “I’m a little envious, not gonna lie.” She perked up when she realized how close Mikey had gotten to her, and her face flushed as he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

Ray bit his tongue and took that as his proper cue to fuck off back to the van, smiling politely one last time to Chrys before he turned around.

Gerard gave a quick glance to Mikey in an attempt to tell him to behave when he pulled back, then relaxed his features again. “I suppose you’ll just have to have an adventure on our behalf, in that case. Safely, of course!”

“I’m very good at having safe adventures, Father, don’t you worry,” Chrys assured him.

Gerard nodded back at her with a smile. “I’m gonna go talk to Brian. Mikey, don’t linger too long,” he warned him before turning to return to their own van, folding and unfolding his hands as he caught up with Ray.

“Is Mikey okay?” Ray asked without thinking when he noticed Gerard’s presence. He bit his tongue immediately after and cursed at himself. 

Gerard smiled, but there was concern behind it. “Yeah. Yeah, you know how he can be. How are you? Because, Ray, I can’t even begin to express how--”

“Then don’t,” Ray quickly cut him off. “Seriously. I just wanna get to wherever we’re going next, this whole mishap is already behind me. I have a little work to catch up on anyway.” Circling around to the back of their van, he pulled the doors open and pulled the remaining dill and mint from his pocket so he could start sorting what could go into vials and what needed to be dried first.

Gerard was hovering. Not close enough to make Ray uncomfortable, but enough that his presence was still noticeable. His silent fretting made Ray turn around again, and even Brian approached them.

He sat on the bumper and crossed his arms, brow cocked as he waited for Gerard to spill his thoughts.

“So,” Gerard said as casually as his nerves would allow. “Chrys, huh?”

“Did Mikey...y’know. Did he do that Mikey thing?” Ray gave a vague gesture.

Gerard scratched the back of his head and glanced away. “I’m pretty sure. There’s no telling whether she may have anything to do with the place we’re going to next, but these premonitions don’t just happen out of the blue. They always got a purpose.”

“Do you know what he saw?” Brian asked.

Gerard shook his head. “Just that he saw  _ something _ . Probably didn’t want to say it out loud in front of someone he didn’t know.”

Ray and Brian nodded. It wasn’t like they could tell strangers about being potentially in danger because of what was usually classified as a hallucination.

“Mikey didn’t...did he impose?” Gerard asked, his voice hushed.

Ray blinked, letting Gerard’s question really sink in before he inhaled as deeply as he could and sigh with an exhausted smile. “No, he didn’t,” he answered in a way that insinuated not to ask any more questions.

“Alright. Well, if we’ve finally got all the chicks in one coop, we should get a move on.” Brian tapped Gerard gently on the back as he stepped away to round the rest of them up.

Ray shuffled further inside the back of the van and slowly closed the doors so he could curl up with his kit and get to work. Gerard re-entered through the side door and sat close to Ray, resting his arms on the back of the seat so he could watch. Soon enough, Mikey appeared by Gerard’s side and copied his posture, then Frank popped up in the corner.

“How’s it goin’?” Frank asked, pressing up against Mikey’s side.

“Just eager to get back on the road,” Ray thought aloud, though his fingers were steady with delicately splitting a plant down its stem. “Did you change that tire?”

“Yep.” Frank sat back and rested his legs over Mikey’s lap as the van took off once more.

*

“You’re paying next time we stop for gas, Bryar,” Brian told him pointedly, and the silence following only grew tense and uncomfortable. It made Gerard want to crawl out of his skin.

And then Ray, ever the peacekeeper, leaned his head back with a roll of his eyes. “Anyway. Gerard, where are we going next? I was paying attention when you told us last night...mostly.”

Gerard smiled timidly and fished around the seat for the unicorn notebook. His tongue poked out behind his lips before he flipped the pages, which caught Frank’s attention for a moment. Which then made Mikey glare at Frank until Frank could eventually feel the burning leer and fucking quit it. “Right. In Lincoln, a large number of missing persons cases had appeared over the past month. And the people who were found...well--”

“What, they were all dead?” Brian assumed.

Gerard nodded. “So here’s the thing that caught the Cardinal’s attention. Or, why this was brought up to him specifically. The bodies that were all recovered were all found with one thing exactly the same. Their eyes were all turned up under their lids with a serene expression. Their deaths were all different, strangely.”

Frank shifted uncomfortably and scratched at the underside of his wrist.

Gerard bit his tongue and tapped his fingers against the edge of the notebook. “One out of the five bodies that were found had crucifixion wounds, but the others...one was burned at the stake, one was stoned, and two were-- were flayed alive.”

“How medieval.” Mikey scowled.

Gerard’s mouth twitched anxiously as he fiddled with the spiral binder of the notebook. “All the missing people were also reported to have been seen in the same place before they disappeared. A place called the Sunken Gardens.”

Ray perked up, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to seem too excited about a possible murder site.

“ I figured we can visit later today when we get settled into our rooms. One of the more fortunate things about the midwest is that motels are cheaper,” Brian told them.

“It’s cheaper because the whole fuckin’ midwest is a liminal space,” Frank thought aloud.

“Alright, Stephen King, settle down,” Bob spoke up.

“Just saying, where did Children of the Corn take place? Nebraska.” Frank crossed his arms.

“Gatlin isn’t even a real town.” Ray rolled his eyes.

“We’re not even straying that far from the city, anyway,” Gerard reminded them. “Lincoln’s a pretty modern, reasonable place, so I’ve been told.”

“Reasonably haunted,” Mikey muttered. Frank bumped fists with him.

Gerard pinched his brow. “For our sakes, let’s  _ hope _ it’s reasonably haunted. I don’t want to have to deal with anything close to He Who Walks Behind The Rows.”

“We could take on a bunch of kids.” Frank shrugged.

“Oh no. We wouldn’t risk assaulting minors for any reason.” Brian turned around to look back at them. “I’m sure the Vatican can only hold us back from the cops so much.”

“Thank you for putting legal issues over the morals of harming children, Brian.” Gerard shook his head.

“Can we do the Lord’s work from behind bars, Father?” Brian smirked. “Didn’t think so. Moving on, we find our motel, we have a laundry day, and we prep for tomorrow’s investigation. Sound good to everyone?” The rest of them responded with less-than-enthusiastic ‘yeah’s.

“So, uh...Sunken Gardens, huh?” Ray asked, raising a brow. “Got any more information on that?”

Gerard perked up. “From what I read up on, it’s a tiny little park off the highway, but it’s upkept by a program by the local college. I would think that it was more of a tourist-y area, but it doesn’t seem to get a  _ whole _ lot of visitors. That’s what makes it so interesting to me, what’s drawing people there in the first place?”

“Maybe it’s charmed.” Ray shrugged.

Gerard nodded, and wrote it down as a possibility in the notebook. “Probably most likely. If any place would be enchanted or something similar, I’d suspect a place full of exotic plants first.”

“Well well, Toro, you got your work cut out for you this time.” Frank smirked and reached behind the seat to nudge Ray’s shoulder.

Ray shrugged. “I guess so.”

The cornfields that Frank detested so much soon turned into large plains, stretching out with a few houses and farm structures dotting the scenery, until that changed sort of instantly into a bunch of modern, somewhat colorful buildings all crowded together. Lincoln was a lot more quaint than most of the cities they’ve seen so far, and Ray wondered in the back of his mind whether the all-around pleasant feel of the place was actually off-putting or not. He decided for the sake of their reason for being here that it was.

Frank stared out the window when the van stopped at a red light. He squinted, peering at the stoplight pole and all the colorful posters taped to it. He couldn’t read everything from where he was, but he noticed most of them all had ‘MISSING’ in big bold letters at the tops. “Hey...” His foot nudged Gerard’s thigh. “Maybe we should check out all those posters when we get settled. They look like they’re everywhere.”

Gerard leaned over on his side to check for the same flyers, and it seemed Frank was right. “Oh. Well, look at that.”

“A reasonable city, huh?” Frank smirked.

“Hey, we’re here to fix the problem,” Gerard reminded him. “So don’t complain too much. Because it’s  _ our _ problem now.”

“M’not  _ complaining _ , just pointing out something weird about this place.” Frank nudged Gerard’s thigh again, but Mikey was the one to shove Frank’s foot off him. Gerard didn’t make any sort of reaction.

When they reached the motel, Brian was able to get them two rooms, and they got to unpacking pretty quickly. Gerard and Mikey took the books up to one room and Ray followed them with most of his kit. When they entered the room, Mikey immediately flopped down on one of the two beds, and tucked his hands behind his head. “I miss beds so much.”

“Don’t get too comfy, Mikey. We’re only here to drop off our stuff, then we’re off to the laundromat,” Brian reminded him.

Mikey just hummed to let Brian know he heard him, then rolled around a little on the top blanket. “Lemme enjoy this for a fuckin’ minute, please. I got tired of being cramped up in the van.”

“As if we all weren’t.” Frank kicked the edge of the bed.

Mikey raised up one of his legs. “See how long these bad boys are?”

Gerard sighed. “Mikey. Come on, don’t be lazy.”

Mikey glowered at that. “M’not,” he grumbled, and rolled off the bed and back on his feet.

“There’ll be plenty of time to lay around when we’re looking over victim profiles and stuff later tonight.” Frank jabbed Mikey’s side gently with his elbow.

Mikey looked uncertain for a moment, glancing between Frank and Gerard. He was speaking in silence again, Ray could tell. “You okay?” he spoke up, letting his thought slip out by accident.

Mikey looked a little startled, then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Frank loosely curled his fingers around Mikey’s wrist, keeping his eyes on him as they stepped back outside.

Mikey smirked and shrugged him off, and they kept nudging each other all the way back to the van. He got in the back with Ray this time, though, and Ray knew exactly why. Mikey took Ray’s last clean shirt, a faded grey Queen tour shirt with a hole in the sleeve, and took off his own to switch. He used to ask Ray if he minded in the beginning, but now it had become somewhat of a routine.

Once it was on, Mikey pulled the collar up to his nose and gently inhaled. “What is this?”

“Pine and jasmine.” Ray leaned back against the wall.

Mikey smiled. “S’nice.”

Ray turned to stare out the back windows in hopes that nobody would notice how badly he wanted to pull Mikey closer to him.

*

Frank and Mikey had staved off the boredom during the first half hour of laundry by bickering about which Stephen King story was the scariest. Mikey chose Misery over Frank’s second defense of Children of the Corn, until Gerard made a solid argument about the Shining. And so Frank and Gerard started going at it, sort of butting Mikey out of the conversation, but the rest of them were amused to see Gerard get passionate about something that wasn’t Catholic lore for once. Mikey’s attention span couldn’t seem to stay interested for too long, apparently, because soon enough, he got lost in his phone.

When Ray didn’t have anything else to look at, his eyes always fell to Mikey. Ray knew it was a bad habit, he hated that he always wondered who Mikey was texting all the time, how he was so good at keeping up with people he’s only physically crossed paths with once. He hated that his eyes fell downward and stared at his own shirt hanging off of Mikey’s skinny frame because, let’s be real, Ray smells the nicest out of all of them and Mikey liked taking advantage of that. Ray hated that that was the only reason Mikey stole his shirts, and not because Mikey had some hidden desire to be that much closer to Ray, to feel him even when they weren’t physically touching.

What was even worse to Ray was that Mikey got so engrossed in his phone that he never caught Ray staring, never gave Ray an excuse to stop watching the slow rise and fall of Mikey’s collarbone with every breath, or studying the minute differences in his expressions, like he involuntarily took up a course in that weird silent language between Mikey and Gerard.

Ray only snapped out of it when he thought about his own brothers at home, then frowned to himself. He tried to think about his brothers as little as possible. Well, his biological ones, anyway.

He had to turn his head fully away so he wouldn’t get sucked back into the vortex of Creepily Observing Mikey, but thankfully something else came to his attention’s rescue. Across the street at an auto shop, there was a van in the parking lot. A pastel yellow van with Vermont license plates. “Mikey, check it out.” Ray nudged him without thinking.

Mikey looked up at Ray first, then followed his gaze. “Oh, cool. She listened.” He hopped off the corner of the table.

Ray raised a brow. “Listened-- did you tell her to follow us or something?”

Mikey gave an indifferent shrug, but there was something about his face. Something in the narrowing of his eyes that made Ray wish that Mikey would just tell him what he was really thinking. Or maybe he should just study the silent language more closely. “C’mon, let’s go see her, see if she’s doin’ okay.”

Ray glanced back at the others. “You wanna, uh, tell ‘em first before we disappear?” he suggested.

Mikey chuckled, and stood up fully. “Hey,” he called out to the others.

Frank stopped mid-sentence and glanced at Mikey. “What’s up?”

“We’re gonna step out for a second.” Mikey’s smile was suggesting something. Ray wished he knew what, but apparently Frank and Gerard caught on easily enough. Brian wasn’t quite convinced yet, though, and Bob just gave an indifferent shrug.

“It’s just across the street,” Ray added. “We’re not gonna cause any ruckus, no need to worry.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Okay, well, you know the drill. Keep your phones on you.”

Mikey saluted Brian, then tapped Ray’s shoulder so they could be on their way.

They stepped back outside and crossed the street. Ray spared another glance at the telephone poles and shuddered subtly, mostly out of sympathy. He turned to glance at Mikey, then Chrys’s van, and faintly remembered at the rest stop when Mikey looked like he  _ saw _ something, but decided not to bring it up.

When they crossed the parking lot, Mikey strolled in and gave a half-smile to the cashier who sounded their shift had gone on too long. Ray followed close behind as they started peeking down the aisles of the store. It didn’t take long to find her; she was tapping her chin and listening to another employee going off about the right tire for her van. Mikey hung back at first, not wanting to interrupt just yet.

Chrys must have sensed them close or something, because her shoulders perked and her eyes widened before she even turned to face them, and she grinned when she finally turned in their direction.

Ray gave a timid wave, his other hand in his pocket. Mikey just nodded.

Chrys said something to the employee, then pointed out to one of the tires, Ray guessed, before hurrying close. “Hi!” she squeaked. “I didn’t expect to see you here, d’you guys need a new tire, too?”

“Nah, we were just across the street.” Mikey pointed his thumb in the direction of the storefront window. “We saw your van, glad your spare was able to get you here okay.”

“Yeah, definitely. Thanks again for your help.” Chrys looked like she was plotting something by the way the corner of her mouth curled. “So, are you both busy? Because my schedule’s free, and I wouldn’t mind finding a park or something and hanging out for a bit.” She pressed her lips together thinly. “It’s a shame, I passed by a psychic’s shop on the way here, but it’s up for sale. I always try to visit one every city I go to. Nevertheless, a park is just as good.”

Ray glanced at Mikey. “Well--”

“Yeah, we got time,” Mikey finished for him, smirking back at Ray.

“Mikey does,” Ray corrected him with a half-shrug. 

Both Mikey and Chrys’s smiles shrank in disappointment. “That’s a bummer, you could totally chill with us and show me some of your hair magic.” She folded her hands, shifting her shoulders in what was probably a suggestive manner, though the gesture was flying right over Ray’s head. Or either he couldn’t wrap his head around her trying to flirt with him when Mikey was  _ right there _ .

Ray’s lips parted, but nothing came out at first. He just gave a vague shake of his head and pulled his mouth into an apologetic frown. “The guys are going to the place later, and I kinda don’t wanna miss it.”

“Oh, right. The gardens.” Mikey tilted his chin up with realization, then rolled his eyes. “Ray’s got kind of a hard-on for plants.”

Ray nudged him hard. “Don’t say it like that.”

“I kinda wish I could go. I love gardens, too.” Chrys scuffed her shoe gently against the floor. “Any chance you could take me there when you’re not doing your super secret business?”

Mikey nudged him back. “I’m sure he’d love to.”

“Yeah,” Ray added, nodding at Chrys. “I mean, I’ll try not to bore you to death by going off about meanings and myths and all that stuff.”

“Joke’s on you, Ray. I’m a sucker for good stories about flowers.” Chrys beamed at him.

“Ray’s an amazing storyteller.” Mikey straightened his posture.

“Okay. I owe you a trip to the garden, as long as it’s safe, anyway.” Ray glanced over his shoulder. His smirk grew against his will. “Well,  _ someone’s _ gotta finish Mikey’s laundry, and if he wants to stick around, guess it’s up to me.”

“Just throw everything back in the bag, I’ll sort it later,” Mikey brushed their hands together. “You  _ sure _ you wanna go back and do all that work?”

Ray bit his tongue. “Have fun, Mikey. Keep your phone on you, okay?” he said, stepping back as he held his own hand to rub off Mikey’s touch. “I’ll see you around, Chrys.”

“You will!” Chrys promised with a giggle. “Okay, Mikey, I gotta buy this dumb tire and we can explore the city.”

Ray smiled to himself and shook his head, exiting the store. When he crossed the parking lot and stopped in front of one of the flyer-covered poles, he got a better look at them and decided to pull a few of them down to show everyone else. When he returned to the laundromat, he held up the papers in his hand. “Check it out.”

“Where’s Mikey?” Gerard immediately asked, and it seemed like Frank was looking around, too.

Ray’s shoulders sagged. “He ran into Chrys again, and they’re gonna hang out for a while, I guess. But I found some missing posters.” He hoped the posters would keep their attention better.

At least Brian seemed more interested, and he took a few of them to look closer at the details. “And these are all of the people not confirmed dead yet?”

“That’s pretty grim.” Bob frowned. Brian just shrugged apologetically.

Gerard leaned over Bob’s shoulder to look. “We can take these over to when we meet the gardeners. I’m sure they’re probably familiar with these, but it doesn’t hurt to ask our own questions.”

Frank played with one of the strings of his hoodie, his eyes fixed on Ray. “So Mikey’s not coming with us to the investigation?”

“We’ll be okay without him for one day.” Gerard nodded, though there was still nervousness in his eyes. “He’s fine. He’ll be fine, right?”

“Yeah. Mikey knows what he’s doing,” Ray added.

Frank shook his head lightly and moved to take Mikey’s clothes out of the dryer when they were done. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this, and there was no look of irritation on his face. It was more blank than anything; he just hauled the bag over his shoulder like it was his own and took it outside to throw right in the back of the van.

Ray followed with his own clothes, stopping to grab a tiny netted pouch with pine chips and dried petals inside it, stuffing it in the center of the bag.

“Okay. Next stop, garden. Who’s driving?” Brian asked, twirling the keyring on his finger.

Gerard raised his hand, and caught the keys when they were tossed to him. When they all filed in, Frank called shotgun so he could mess with the radio, curious to what sort of stations Nebraska even had. If Frank could boil them down to one word, it’d be, “Basic.”

Gerard tutted and just turned the radio off instead. The drive didn’t take very long regardless, so there wasn’t too long of a silence before they parked on the curb and looked down at their destination. Frank’s eyes narrowed as he looked over what he could see from their parking spot. “Huh. Not as colorful as I expected.”

“It’s plenty vibrant.” Gerard shrugged, then turned to Ray when he appeared at his other side. “What do you think?”

“It’s clean, whoever tends this place is clearly in it for a more old-regal-type of look with all the grass.” Ray poked his tongue at his teeth, unimpressed. “But clearly, I can’t tell what’s being grown from all the way over here.”

Frank rolled back on his heels. “Just saying. If I were to get lured in here, they wouldn’t be doing a very good job.”

“Probably because you’re not the target demographic,” Bob replied.

Brian said nothing; he just separated himself from the peanut gallery and walked around to the entrance in a gesture to get them to stop dawdling. Thankfully, it didn’t take them more than a minute to catch on and catch up to him.

Ray really seemed to be the only one that actually paid attention to the plants; everyone else just mainly kept glancing back to him every five minutes to see if he would have something to say. He pretended not to notice, though he smirked in amusement.

The garden itself seemed sort of average, and Ray would have guessed that was the reason why there weren’t too many people around visiting. It was mostly bush flowers in segregated colors, nothing that really would have much use outside of looking pretty. Nothing that gave off the air of  _ come hither _ , or anything he’d personally use for any spells. He started to get disappointed, until something finally caught his eye.

An older woman knelt beside a bush of yellow rhododendrons, pruning away wilted flowers and leaves. She had an ID card clipped to her lapel and mostly grey hair pulled back in a tight braid, and looked up at the group when she saw their shadows move in her peripherals. Setting down her shears, she grunted slightly as she slowly got back on her feet. “Ah, is there something I might be able to help you gentlemen with?”

Gerard cleared his throat. “Good afternoon. I’m Father Way, these are my associates.”

She smiled. “A pleasure. I’m Iris.” She pulled her glove off to extend a hand. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Gerard smiled softly. “No, we’re just passing through. Sort of.” He looked down to her ID, it was for the University of Nebraska. “So is this your garden?”

Iris glanced around at the group, peering as if she was searching much harder than she needed to.

“Is everything okay?” Gerard asked.

“There’s supposed to be six of you, isn’t there?” Iris tilted her head.

Frank blinked and bit back a frown. “Why would you think that?” As far as he knew, it wasn’t like they were famous or anything. The Vatican made sure of that.

Iris’s gaze flicked over Frank’s form; he felt like she was specifically targeting his forehead and wrists, which made him immediately look away from her. “Whispers down the very long lane. I’m an avid supporter of my church.” On cue, a golden crucifix dangling around her neck glittered in the sunlight.

Even Gerard got skeptical, but he didn’t let it show. “Good! At least we know where to go to Mass on Sunday,” he thought aloud to keep the mood light. “To answer your question, the rest of our group is at another location. It’s better to multitask, you know?”

Iris nodded, though she didn’t seem fully satisfied. “It’s an honor to meet you all. Please, feel free to look around wherever you’d like.”

“We appreciate that.” Gerard nodded. “Speaking of missing people, is it alright if we ask you a few things?”

“Ah, yes. We’ve had quite the little problem in our city, unfortunately.” Iris folded her hands in front of herself and gave a heavy sigh. “I’m not sure how much help I could provide, but please, ask anything you need to.”

“Thank you. Would you care to elaborate on what you know about the problem you’re speaking of? I mean, we’ve only heard so much, but we want to hear your side of the story, too,” Gerard said.

“Yes. A few people have disappeared here over the past few months. None of these people knew each other, nobody ever found them.” Iris’s face went sullen. “Alive, at least. I read the reports of the bodies...such tragedies. So strange, too, the way they were--” She paused, as if speaking of the murders physically pained her.

Gerard gave her a look of sympathy. “I know these people didn’t know each other, but do you know if there were any similarities between any of them? Have...have you ever spoken to any of them before their disappearance?”

Iris shook her head regretfully. “Most of my team usually tends to the gardens more than I do these days, my bones can only endure so much. If you’d like, you can come down to our greenhouses and talk to the others.”

“Oh! Yes, please, that would be--” Gerard glanced back at the others. “How familiar would you say they’d be with the disappearances?”

“Well, considering the amount of news coverage it’s been getting lately, I’d say pretty well.” Iris smiled warmly. “My team would be delighted to meet you. Here.” She pulled out a card from her shirt pocket. “We run a botany program at the local college. There’s an open arboretum and greenhouses you’re more than welcome to explore.”

Brian took the card. “That sounds like a start. Thanks. Ray, did you want to...” He waved his hand widely, insinuating if the rest of the garden was worth looking at.

“No, I don’t think so.” Ray shook his head, giving the place one final look-over. If there was only one plant out of the hundred or so species here, it wasn’t a pressing matter. They could always come back later.

Iris’s smile grew. “Are you a fan of gardens, Raymond?”

Ray paused, and tried to ignore the chill in his spine. Nobody was allowed to call him Raymond except his mother and legal professionals. “Yeah, sorta. But it’s only a passing interest. We should get to the greenhouses, then. Right?”

Brian nudged him with a frown. “Yeah. Thanks again, Miss Iris. Will we be seeing you again?”

“Most likely. I’ll be returning after I’m done tending here.” She folded her hands. “I’ll let the others know in advance about your arrival, so they’ll be expecting you.”

“You’re very kind.” Gerard nodded, and they let her return to her pruning. Ray and Frank got one last look at her, and saw that she was grinning to herself.

“C’mon,” Bob called to them, and they were quick to catch up. When they reconvened at the van, they all passed curious glances at each other.

“I don’t like her,” Frank said casually as he hopped back in the van.

Gerard made a small noise of hesitation. “Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet.”

The campus looked more like a public park with a few buildings interwoven within. The rest of the college buildings were in the background, but the place was a few acres of vibrant green stuck right in the middle of an average suburb. They parked in front of an office complex and were buzzed in, immediately greeted by a college-age man with an excited smile.

“Father Way, I presume? I just got off the phone with Iris a minute ago. It’s good to have you here.” He glanced over the group, squinting. “I’m Ivan, I guess I’m sort of like second in command.”

Gerard held his hand out, and Ivan shook it. “The pleasure is ours, Ivan. So do you visit the Sunken Gardens often?”

“Oh, every day. Every plant and flower we grow there, we have here as well, if you wanted a closer look. Come see.” Ivan led them outside to a line of greenhouses, and held the door open for all of them to enter.

“Our greenhouses are open to the public from dawn to dusk, except for certain hours where classes are run by the biology department. We keep around 500 species of plants here, all treated with special formulas for each greenhouse that we mist on them overnight.”

Ray looked up at the sprinkler system. “Cool,” he murmured. When he lowered his eyes again, he settled on the door by the back with the blacked out window. “Anything back there?”

Ivan shook his head. “Just storage and the tanks to the misters. Nothing special.”

Gerard nodded. “So these are the plants here that would also be found in the Sunken Gardens?”

“Well, in here, we grow the smaller...filler plants, I guess you would call them. All the trees and bushes are obviously outside. Can’t fit ‘em in here.” Ivan chuckled.

Ray bit his tongue. “Could we see those, too?”

“No problem.” Ivan led them out of the greenhouse and down a winding grassy path until they came to an area of perfectly lined trees of different types. “These are our pride and joy, really. The collection is much smaller, because they need more care and obviously more time to grow, but well worth the care.”

The others glanced to Ray curiously, who had an expression like he was looking for something in particular. He stopped in front of one with white flowers, and reached up to gently pull a branch. “Almond?”

“Oh, yes! We have 20 different species of nut trees here,” Ivan responded enthusiastically.

Frank reached up to pick an almond off, but Ray slapped his hand away and shot him a look of warning.

“Do you give them special nutrients like the greenhouse plants?” Ray asked.

“No, they’re more self-sustainable, thankfully. But we do have a care routine for them as well. Making sure they get enough water, harvesting their fruits, et cetera.”

Brian watched Ray carefully, wondering what he was trying to get at with his questions. Ray glanced back at him with an arched brow, trying to insinuate that he had a plan, though he wasn’t sure if he was skilled enough in facial language to get the message across. Man, he missed Mikey.

“You said visitors are allowed to come and tour the grounds, too, right?” Gerard asked. “You wouldn’t happen to have a guestbook or anything, would you?”

“Ah, no. Sorry.” Ivan scratched the back of his head. “There’s really no reason for us to keep a list of people.”

Gerard nodded. “And...how many of you are in this program?”

“Twelve, sir-- er, Father.”

Gerard quietly pulled out the posters and held them out to him. “Have you ever seen any of these people around in the last week or two?”

Ivan shuffled through the papers, a look of genuine confusion and concern growing on their face. “Sorry, no. But I’m sure someone else might have. Sometimes we’re around to provide information, or our daily tending schedules line up with visiting hours.”

“Thanks so much for your help.” Gerard took the posters back and nodded to the rest of them so they could sequester themselves in a small circle.

Brian tapped Ray’s shoulder. “Got a reason why you were diverting the investigation?”

Ray blinked. “What?”

Before either of them could continue, Gerard cut them off. “They’re growing the same plants here as the Garden, which means there are resources to any spells that the Garden might be giving off.”

Brian raised his hands up in defense. “Fine, alright.”

“On top of that, they could be growing a number of things here that could be used as a weap--  _ spit that out! _ ” Ray smacked the back of Frank’s head hard.

“OW! Toro, the fuck gives?!” A half-chewed almond fell out of his mouth.

Ray inhaled sharply. “Please tell me you didn’t eat too many of those.”

“Just like, one or two...” Frank looked down at the discarded almond on the ground, then the other four in his hand. “Why? They’re just nuts...right?”

“Bitter almonds have  _ cyanide _ in them, dumbass. I told you not to eat them.” Ray frowned. “You’re gonna be fine, just tell me if you feel dizzy later.” When Frank’s face paled, Ray rested a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” he repeated. “But you see what I mean about growing dangerous things?”

Gerard fidgeted with his fingers. “We should split up and ask around the building about the people. Bob and Brian, you go one way, I’ll go another. Frank and Ray...check the greenhouses again for anything that could be used for spells. Maybe collect samples.”

“Why do  _ I _ have to go with Ray?” Frank asked, rubbing the sore spot on his head.

“To make sure you don’t poison yourself further,” Ray answered.

Frank glanced back at Gerard in an are-you-kidding-me sort of way, but Gerard responded with a half-smile, probably something along the lines of saying his decision was final. “Okay, well, where are we meeting up?”

“The van, say, four hours.” Brian checked his watch and nodded to himself. “If anything goes wrong, call me and head back to the van early.”

They all split up, and Ray headed back to the greenhouses with Frank, begrudgingly, in tow. He held the door open for Frank when they stepped into a different house. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

Frank shrugged. “Yeah, no biggie. Sorry I almost poisoned myself, I guess.”

Ray smiled humbly. “Told you not to eat them.” As he started down the first row, he gently ran his fingers over the various herbs. They were plants that one would usually find in a kitchen cabinet: basil, bay, sage, cloves, and he suddenly regretted not bringing a few empty vials with him. Nevertheless, he knew what abilities they could do, so there wasn’t a real reason why he needed to collect any samples here.

“Tell me I’m not the only person who finds this place creepy,” Frank spoke suddenly, making Ray raise his head. There was a discomfort deep in his eyes, despite not meeting Ray’s stare. “I dunno what the others think of these people, but...dude.”

Ray nodded, and resumed visually studying the plants. “I know how you feel.”

“The moment Iris knew not all of us here put me off. How does she know who we are?” Frank lowered his volume, even though they were the only ones in the greenhouse.

“I guess that’s why we’re here, to find that out--”

The door opened again, and a different student entered with a look of surprise. She had a toolbox in one hand. “Oh, sorry-- am I interrupting something? You guys are with...that group Iris told us about, right?”

Ray straightened his back. “I think we might be intruding,” he answered, smiling timidly. “We can leave, if you’d like.”

“No! No trouble at all.” She shook her head softly. “Actually, d’you two maybe wanna help me with something? Our more exotic collection is next door, we don’t usually let visitors see, but I heard you’re somewhat of an aficionado.”

Frank tensed. “Sorry, but we’re kind of in the middle of something at the moment.”

She was quiet with her mouth hung open in mild shock, forcing tension to lay heavy in the air.

“While you’re here, though,” Ray spoke up. “We’ve been asking people around about the recent news. The...missing people in the Sunken Gardens. Would you happen to know anything about them?”

She took that as an invitation to get closer to them, and she looked to Frank. “Not anything out of the ordinary, no. I mean, we see familiar faces pass through all the time, as well as people out of town. And out of state, apparently.” She chuckled to herself. “It’s not really our business to talk to people outside of the campus. Working in the gardens over there is mainly solitary work, I guess.”

“You’ve never seen anyone acting weird or anything?” Frank asked.

“The weirdest people I’ve personally seen in the past few months are you guys. Interesting body mods, by the way.” She gestured to his forehead.

Frank’s fingers curled into his palms. “Thanks.”

When her eyes turned to Ray, her smile grew as she eyed him up and down. “You sure you don’t wanna check out our rarer species?”

Ray uncomfortably looked back to the plants in front of him. “We got our own tasks to focus on, but thanks for the offer. Maybe later?”

She paused, then lowered her face. “Yeah. Yeah, the offer’s open for whenever.”

Frank gripped Ray’s sleeve. “There’s other places we need to check out,” he stated, and brushed past the student to leave with Ray in tow. The second he was back outside, he was glowering. “I don’t like her. I don’t like Iris. I don’t like  _ any _ of these people. Mikey would agree with me if he was here.”

“I’m sure everyone’s getting sketchier about this place the more we stick around here.” Ray placed a hand on Frank’s mid-back. “Mikey will be back with us either tonight or tomorrow. You know how good he is at reading people; there’s no way he wouldn’t believe you.”

“Can we...get back to the van or find Gerard? No offense, but I really don’t feel like checking out the other greenhouses right now.” Frank gently shrugged Ray’s hand off.

“I get that, but could we re-visit the trees and bushes real quick? I need something to take back with me to the motel, and if we run into anyone else, then we’ll find Gerard again. Is that okay?”

Frank sighed, but grumbled in agreement. He followed Ray back to the line of trees and helped him snip off small flowers and leaves under his instruction, even if his attention was mainly focused on keeping a lookout for others.

“Thanks so much, Frankie. I appreciate your help and sticking this out with me,” Ray said after they were finished.

Frank let out a breath of relief. “Now we meet up with Gerard?”

Ray nodded, and opened the door to the office complex for him. Frank texted Gerard so they could meet up, though they left the talking to the other botanists mostly up to him. Nobody was of much help at all, to their dismay. All the answers they received were vague, though a very small handful did recognize some of the victims’ faces; they’d seen some of them at the Gardens, but never saw them leave.

Just when Gerard, Frank, and Ray had finished their half of the interrogations, they met up with Brian and Bob, and surprisingly, Iris, who seemed to appear from nowhere.

“How is your tour going? Are you finding everything up to standard, gentlemen?” Iris folded her hands, her thumbs rubbing against each other slowly.

“This place is wonderful, Iris. Thank you for allowing us to talk to your team.” Gerard nodded to her.

“Wonderful. After our conversation, I got to thinking. I want to help out in any way I can, and I wasn’t sure what sort of accommodations you had here. Since we’re in between semesters, we have a few open dormitories if you need a place to stay for a few days.”

“For how much?” Brian asked.

Iris looked at him in shock. “No, I wouldn’t charge you while you’re doing such important work!”

Brian was quiet in contemplation. “That’s very kind of you, Ma’am. We’re already set up at a motel, though we could come around tomorrow and move our things here. Would that suffice?”

Ray clenched his jaw. This place freaked him out more and more, and Brian actually wanted to stay here overnight.

“Of course, that gives us enough time to prepare things for you. You’ll only need one room?” Iris asked.

“One room is just fine,” Brian confirmed. “We can be surprisingly compact.”

Iris straightened her back with a quiet breath, and she nodded. “We can’t wait to have you.”

Gerard nodded. “Thank you again for everything you’re doing for us. For now, though, we have a lot more research to do. I hope you have a good rest of your day.”

*

“Are you sure you wanna stay here, Ray?” Gerard asked as he placed the telephone pole posters in a folder and set it on top of the nightstand.

“Yeah, I got a lot of organizing to do. And it might be smart for someone to be around in case Mikey comes back, y’know?” Ray set his kit on the bed.

Gerard nodded. “Okay, well, we’ll keep you updated on any other information we find on these people. And if Mikey does come around, just let him know where we went. We should be back in a few hours. Oh, and if you find anything about the plants--”

“I’ll bring it up when you get back. Promise.” Ray half-smiled at him. “Good luck.”

“You, too.” Gerard turned and left for the van.

The moment right after the front door closed, Ray took a deep breath and headed for the shower. He didn’t take a long time, since he wanted to spend most of his time reading and maybe doing a few test runs of the samples he’d taken from the greenhouses. Besides, long showers meant more time to get lost in his head, more time wondering how Mikey was doing-- he could text him later just to check in. After the ten-minute shower, he just wrapped a towel around his hips and stood in front of the sink.

Ray’s head hung down until his neck was practically straining. His mind was still in a bit of a haze as he tried to figure out his small schedule: do some skin care first, book second-- no, text Mikey second,  _ then _ books third, take a more thorough look at his new samples fourth. Straightening his back, he avoided looking at himself in the mirror and nodded, then padded back out to open his bag of reused, re-labeled soap and shampoo bottles.

Right when he found the one he wanted, the door flew open and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “Oh. You’re here,” Mikey said awkwardly. “Thought you’d gone off with everyone else. I just came in here because Frank said I could borrow something.”

Ray kept his face down toward the bed at first, until he unfroze his joints. “Okay,” he muttered stiffly, turning his back to Mikey. He was still in a towel, for Christ’s sake, a shitty thin motel towel that, quite frankly, didn’t leave a lot to the imagination, and Ray didn’t even have the decency of a shirt yet and it would have been super awesome if Mikey remembered what fucking knocking was. Though, in Mikey’s defense, he probably wasn’t expecting anyone to be here. And yet. Here they were now, alone. “Then just take what you need and go.”

“Hey.” Mikey shut the door behind him.  _ Fuck _ , Ray’s mind was screaming. “I’m sorry about Chrys. I know you met her first and everything. It wasn’t my intention to, like--”

“Not like I had a claim on her or anything, dude.” Ray rolled his eyes and made his way back to the bathroom. The faster Mikey could stop  _ looking _ at him, the faster he could put all his intrusive thoughts to rest. “I wasn’t trying to get in her pants.”

Mikey stumbled over his words, then flinched when Ray slammed the bathroom door. “I-I’m actually relieved you’re here. Okay, I...I saw something. Back when we were changing her tire.”

“That’s great, Mikey,” Ray responded a bit more sharply than he meant to. “Just go, okay? Seriously. I know it’s been a few weeks since you’ve met someone.” The air was tense. There was no indication that the main door had been opened, and Ray could still hear Mikey’s shuffling around. Probably getting whatever he needed to from Frank.

“Ray?” Mikey’s voice was hesitant. “Did you really say no to hanging out because you wanted to go with the guys to that garden?”

“Yeah. Not to sound self-centered or anything, but I figured I might be more helpful this time around than usual. I dunno.” Ray couldn’t even look at the door. His face was hot at the sound of how soft Mikey’s voice was.

“Because, like, we both really wanted you around. You could still come hang out with us, actually! She’s just waiting in the parking lot.”

“I can’t. I got research to do and you’re in the way of me getting dressed.”

Mikey scoffed. “Ray. It’s not like I don’t know what you look like. Just come out. Please.”

“Bye, Mikey,” he said instead, more aggressively than he meant. “Be safe.”

“You promise you’re not mad?” Mikey pushed. “Because I’m just gonna stay here if you’re mad. And then I’m gonna be a nuisance until you’re not mad at me anymore.”

“You’re not gonna stay here and leave a lady waiting.” Ray huffed.

“Okay, then tell me you’re not mad.” Mikey leaned against the wall beside the bathroom door.

“I did already.” Ray felt trapped, which made him tense up more.

“No, look me in the eye and tell me like you mean it.” Mikey fiddled with the doorknob. “Please, Ray?”

Ray took the deepest breath of his life and pushed his hair back. He cracked the door open at first, thought Mikey nudged it open enough so that he could see his whole, scowling face. Ray glanced down at Mikey’s hands to see what he had to ‘borrow’, and he could deduce from the square, shiny wrapper between his fingers. “I’m not mad at you about the Chrys thing,” he admitted, willing his face not to go red. “I  _ am _ starting to get mad at you, however, because you’re interrupting me.”

Mikey fell silent with a suggestive arch of his brow, then held up his hands in surrender. “Alright, whatever you gotta do. Sorry,” he said in a way that meant he definitely wasn’t sorry. “I know we don’t get any privacy in the van anymore--”

“Oh my god, Mikey! Just go!” Ray hid behind the door again, closing it so he could press his back to it and press his face hard into his hands. He had half a mind to tell Mikey he didn’t mean it, to tell him not to go so they might be able to talk about the mess going on in his mind, but Chrys was waiting for him. Ray knew he would only end up embarrassing himself anyway, letting Mikey know what he felt about him.

He turned the hot tap on and ran his hands under it until the burn started leaving red marks. When he could finally feel his pulse calm, he cooled the water down to lukewarm and applied a thin layer over his hands, arms, neck, and face before stepping out into the empty room and finally getting dressed in peace. He tied his hair up in a high ponytail before cracking the first book on top of his stack, trying not to drown in the silence.

The sky had darkened significantly when the group returned, Gerard carrying a few manila folders under his arm that he promptly laid out between the two beds. He neatly laid out the cut-out articles beside the missing posters. “So here’s what we’ve gathered so far. Three of the missing people were all in the business of psychic help. Fortune tellers, reiki healers, that sort.”

“Were they legit?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s still a similarity.” Gerard shrugged. “Maybe the rest of them shared the same sort of, uh, abilities, but just didn’t use them professionally.”

Ray shifted uncomfortably and looked around at the others, wondering if they were thinking the same thing as he was. But they were all quiet, most likely thinking more deeply about the victims than about Mikey.

“So--” Bob pointed at the posters. “In the van, you said that all the dead victims had something in common as well. They all had their eyes pointing up to God or something. Do you think these people’s gifts connect to that?”

Gerard scratched at his chin. “That could be. Someone...is taking these people for their alleged abilities, and...the question is why they’re being killed.”

“Maybe they’re being punished for witchcraft?” Bob shrugged.

“Oh my god. What if--” Frank sat up straight. “--a garden. And-- and people with psychic powers are known to have, like, super knowledge, right? Pretty Eden-esque, in my opinion.”

Gerard stuttered, then his mouth hung open for a moment. “That’s...I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

“So you think there’s a possibility that, what? The victims are the supposed apples and whoever’s doing this is taking...their powers?” Ray asked.

Frank nodded as he pulled his phone out.

Gerard scribbled notes hastily in the unicorn notebook. “So we have two possibilities.”

“Do we know what times of day the people have gone missing?” Brian spoke up.

Gerard looked over the collected files again. “They’re not  _ terribly _ consistent, but they all took place during afternoon and evening hours.”

“Which means that they were taken during hours which the place was still open to the public. So none of them were attacked, were they? They might have been led away quietly so other visitors wouldn’t notice.”

Frank shifted uncomfortably. “What if that’s what that one girl was trying to do?” he asked Ray. “The one who was talking about the rare plants.”

Gerard blinked. “What happened?” He pulled out the unicorn notebook to start adding notes.

“It wasn’t anything drastic. One of the workers approached us and we asked about the victims, but she also seemed sort of persistent about showing us some sort of exotic collection of plants. She also...did stare at Frank. A lot,” Ray explained.

“She was staring at my scars,” Frank added bitterly.

Gerard scribbled in the notebook. “That is unnerving. Makes me wonder if there’s any connection to martyrdom, after all. The word  _ martyr _ , after all, is Greek. It means witness, which is what psychic people could be categorized as.” The tip of his pen tapped against his lower lip.

Ray frowned in concern. “I fear for the victims, if that’s the case.”

*

“Gerard said he’d have a better feel of this place if you had a look for yourself,” Ray thought aloud as he walked down the bleak hallway with Mikey by his side. He didn’t know why, but the corridor seemed a little suffocating, which was why he was so eager to open the door outside, where the greenhouses awaited them.

Mikey shrugged. “Gee needs to learn to trust his own opinion more.”

“Maybe.” Something about the greenhouses, from the outside, seemed a lot more inviting than usual. They also were taller than Ray remembered, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in his book. “Still, I missed you yesterday. Wish you were with us.”

“You missed me, huh?” Mikey asked, keeping his eyes forward.

Ray huffed. “We. I meant  _ we _ . Your insight is really important, y’know.” He forgot about the slip up quickly as he pulled the door open of one of them and let Mikey in first. Only the interior wasn’t the same at all. Ray was staring at the inside of the old shop. Everything was right where it should be: the mirrors, the chairs, the doors to Brian’s office and Frank’s piercing room, the sinks...

“Nice. Got time before your next client?” Mikey asked with a smile that only the group and Mikey’s family had seen before. The relaxed, comfortable smile that said that he felt right at home. He strolled in and plopped himself down in one of the sink chairs and crossed his legs.

Ray blinked out of his stunned state. He knew this was wrong, he knew the inside of the greenhouse wasn’t supposed to look like this. But with how casually Mikey took it all in, it forced him to be calm and accept it. “Uh-- yeah. Always got time for you.” He followed in Mikey’s trail and watched the way Mikey slowly craned his neck back, his chin pointed to the ceiling, like an act of submission. The dip where his throat met his clavicle stood out right above the collar of...God, he was still wearing Ray’s shirt. Ray took a breath to focus when he approached Mikey’s head, and removed his glasses for him. He hesitated at first, idly stroking the unfolded temple until he lowered the pair and slid them to rest at the collar of the shirt.

Mikey smiled so comfortably and moaned, for the love of  _ fuck _ . Ray wanted to get out of there, but disappointing Mikey was worse. Shaking his head to himself, he turned the faucet on.

“I think this is one of the things I miss most about home,” Mikey admitted, his eyes fluttering shut when Ray started testing out the water temperature. Ray watched the calculated rise and fall of his chest, clenching his jaw when Mikey hummed low. “Being able to just sit here and watch you, I like the faces you make when you’re all in the zone.”

The words should have felt good to hear, but they just didn’t. They made Ray feel more exposed, than anything.

“I missed your hands, Ray.” Mikey was gazing up at him under his lashes. His fingers twitched like they wanted to reach up and touch Ray, but he was holding himself back.

He swallowed hard. “I still fix your hair on occasion.” His voice wavered, threatening to crack. The nozzle sprayed Mikey’s hair down, but now he hesitated to run his fingers through it.

“Not like this.” Mikey shifted in the chair, stretching himself out slightly with an arched back. “I know you know what I like. You know exactly how to touch me. You know every bump on my scalp intimately, you know my bone structure. You think about my face so often, I know you do.” Ray could feel his finger crawl right under the bottom hem of his shirt. His nail was sharp. “Your  _ hands _ , Ray, they’re so gentle with me. I don’t think hairdressers are supposed to caress their clients the way you do with me.”

“Mikey, stop.” Ray turned the water off and pulled back. When he looked up at the mirrors, the interior of the greenhouse reflected endlessly in them, infinite rows of plants and flowers that went on forever. His pulse sped up, and he grabbed a towel to dry his hands. “Maybe we should do this another time.”

“You just said you always have time for me.” Mikey gripped him by the shoulders, eight pinpricks digging under his shirt and his skin and he couldn’t help but stumble back into one of the chairs by the mirrors. “Maybe...” Mikey pressed his hands down over Ray’s wrists to trap him. Ray could see now that Mikey’s fingertips were replaced by curled brown thorns, nails and all. “...maybe I should be the one taking care of you for once.” His hair was still soaking wet, hanging from his head in short tendrils, but the drips of water falling off the ends were green and shiny and thin.  _ Savory _ , his memory pinged. “You’re always takin’ care of me. Doesn’t it get tiresome? Don’t you want me to finally give you some gratitude?”

“We need to find Iris before she finds us, she could walk in here at any second.” Ray kept looking back to the reflection of the rows of plants. His limbs lost all feeling when Mikey crawled into his lap, and he knew the telltale signs of panic flaring in the pit of his chest when pins and needles washed over his parted thighs.

“Then let her see.” Mikey held Ray’s face tightly in his hands so he was forced to look only at him. “You wish they could all see.” Leaning forward, their lips pressed painfully together, but Mikey’s mouth was like pure oxygen. Ray immediately cast aside everything he knew about breathing normally and latched onto his lips as desperately as he could, but Mikey still pulled away. “Easy now, I want you to see.”

Mikey lowered Ray’s gaze to where their hips rutted together, and his hands dropped to play with the zipper on his own jeans.

“No, c’mon. Not here--” Ray tried to protest.

“It’s okay.” Mikey kissed his cheek. “I got you.” He was putting himself on display, making a little show for him when he hiked the borrowed shirt up his pelvis. The thin trail of hair leading down was a lush, deep green and grew thicker the more Ray stared.  _ Stop staring! _ The moment his button popped open, a shrill, high-pitched siren went off far in the distance. But it was loud enough to set Ray on edge. Still, his eyes were glued to watching Mikey pull his zipper down at a torturously slow pace, and he  _ knew _ this wasn’t meant for him, Mikey was just making a whole fucking joke of him and he could feel thorns growing out of his rib bones, threatening to pierce through his skin.

“I know you see me, Ray.” Mikey’s lips were against his temple, but it wasn’t enough. “Do you want to know what I see?” His tongue was cold and slick against Ray’s cheekbone, leaving a chilly tingle in its wake. Mikey pulled back, his eyes dark and his lips parted with heavy breath. “Do you want to know what I see?”

Ray held his breath. He knew the only way he could breathe without pain was if Mikey kissed him again, but he couldn’t when he was watching Mikey’s fingers and listening to Mikey’s whimpering breaths ghost across his ears, and he saw petals. Vibrant, blood red petals spilling out of Mikey’s jeans, blooms in perfect circles. When Mikey opened his mouth again, the petals accumulated behind his teeth and spilled out over his chin and onto Ray’s chest. Ray was almost knocked out by the smell of rhododendrons, and his body jolted back into animation. He clapped his hands hard over his face, and the sirens blared painfully in his brain.

  
  


Ray’s eyes rolled under the lids before they opened, and he inhaled sharply. The grating pitch of his ringtone made him groan, and he heard Frank lazily punch the nightstand between them as if that would turn the noise off. Gerard had placed a chair by the window so he could read quietly in the neon lights from outside, but now his eyes were turned up to watch Ray and Frank wake.

Ray sighed and propped himself up on an elbow, his free hand slapping down on his phone and pulling it to his ear. “Yeah?” he grunted. The sleepiness drained from him quickly, though, when all he heard was frantic crying from the other side. He double-checked the caller ID, and the phone was Mikey’s, but the voice didn’t sound like Mikey. “...Hello?”

“R-Ray, is that you?”

“Chrys?” He sat up fully. “What happened?” Those two words caught Frank’s and Gerard’s attention immediately. Gerard went rigid after shutting his book. “It’s okay, just take a deep breath,” Ray continued.

Chrys sniffled hard. “It’s not okay-- s-some guys showed up out of nowhere and-and--” She whined deep from the back of her throat, that sort of desperately terrified whine that made Ray’s blood go sub zero. “I don’t know where they went, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Get the fuck up,” Ray hissed at Frank. he’d already jumped out of bed and threw his jeans on. He could feel Gerard hot on his tail, throwing all privacy aside as he tried to listen in on the conversation. “It’s okay, Chrys, you did the right thing by calling us first. Um--” Between Frank’s worried eyes searching for an answer and Gerard’s growing frantic state and Chrys’s broken sobs, Ray’s lungs were painfully tight in his chest.

_ Mikey’s gone, Mikey’s fucking gone, Mikey’s just going to become another fucking missing poster on the telephone poles-- _

“This is gonna sound crazy, but please, just trust me. Don’t call the cops just yet,” Ray told her as softly as he could. “Where are you? Are you safe right now?” Chrys told him where her van was parked, and he hummed in confirmation. “Okay. We’ll be there in five, just...hang tight.” By the time he hung up, Frank had taken the liberty of knocking on Brian and Bob’s door, which left him to face Gerard.

“Where’s my brother?” Gerard gripped Ray’s arm.

“We’re gonna find out. Mikey’s strong, and we’re gonna find him. Just--” Ray hated not knowing that things were gonna be okay. He hated not being able to say it with conviction, so he didn’t. “Get to the van.”

Gerard hadn’t let go of Ray, but he followed so closely, he could’ve tripped if he wasn’t watching his own feet. “Ray, while you were sleeping, you muttered some things,” he confessed.

Ray was careful not to look Gerard in the eye. “It’s not important to the situation, Gee. Whatever you heard.”

“Are you sure?” Gerard’s voice got quieter. “You sounded scared.”

Against his better judgment, Ray harshly tugged his arm away and hurried into the van. “Whatever you heard doesn’t mean anything,” he repeated sternly. He could feel his face burning, and was silently grateful for the night sky hiding the flushed color.

“You just-- you asked something. Or, at least that’s what it sounded like. ‘What do you see’ you, uh, you said,” Gerard continued on.

Ray stretched his fingers out, then relaxed them. It could have been worse. “I really don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry. Dreams are nonsensical to normal people like us.” Normal people, in his context, meant everyone except Mikey.

Before Gerard could reciprocate, because he looked like he was already conjuring up a counterpoint, Frank, Bob, and Brian were unlocking the van and getting inside as quick as possible. Ray got in the driver’s seat and had to fight not to tear out of the parking lot. He detested the tense silence between the remaining five of them, but there was nothing to say. They were probably all thinking the same thing.

Ray practically threw the van door open the moment he parked, and he hurried to Chrys’s driver-side door. Since she had all her windows covered up, he knocked softly on the glass and smiled sadly when she peeked behind the heavy cloth.

She opened the door and stepped hesitantly outside with a blanket tight around her shoulders. She was fully dressed underneath, so Ray assumed the blanket was there for comfort. Under the blanket, though, Ray recognized all too well  _ his _ shirt. The shirt that Mikey was wearing, and now Chrys was. Her stare was somewhere between spaced out and still wired from what happened. “Thanks for getting here so quickly,” she croaked.

Gerard appeared by Ray’s side, wide-eyed and out of breath. “Are you hurt?” he asked first, though he was trying to search for any sign of Mikey from the outside of the van.

Chrys took a deep breath, then turned her face away and coughed. “Just shaken up. They pushed me around a little, they put something over my mouth. I didn’t pass out...but--” She lowered her head and clenched her jaw. “It was clear they were here for Mikey. I-- I don’t know who they were or why...”

“Do you remember anything that stood out about them?” Gerard asked a little too quickly.

Chrys nodded. “The stuff on the rag they used had a sort of smell to it. Almonds, I think. Like, really intense.”

Ray nodded, although concern grew heavy in his eyes. When everyone else approached at a safe distance, trying not to crowd her, Ray pulled his phone out. “We should get you to a hospital or something, at least. I really don’t like the sound of whatever they used on you.”

“Gerard?” Frank said quietly as he knelt down beside the back tire. Mikey’s broken glasses were lying discarded beside it, both lenses cracked and stained with drops of red.

Gerard spun to face Frank, and suddenly he was a hair’s away from crumbling apart. As he staggered forward, he took the glasses from Frank and felt his eyes flood over. As he clutched the broken frames to his chest, Frank pulled him into a loose hug and let Gerard go through what he needed to.

Chrys opened her side door so she could sit down. “Mikey told me something that stood out to me.” She looked back up to Ray, and pushed her hand out from under her blanket to brush over his. “He said...he didn’t want me to be alone this week. He didn’t know why, but the way he looked when he said it--” Her lips remained parted, and she gave a faint shake of her head.

Ray took a deep breath. “Mikey’s like that sometimes. He’s looking out for you, and we’ll make sure you’re not alone. I’m...I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this happened.”

“Does it happen often?” she asked, a sudden fear in her eyes.

“No. Not-- not like this.” Sometimes it really sucked not being able to explain themselves. Although, even if he could, he wasn’t sure he’d have the right words to articulate what they do without scaring her further. But at this point, he’d expected them to be caught up in some haunted fiasco.

Instead, Mikey was gone.

Brian bowed his head. “I’ll call the ambulance,” he offered, and walked a few feet away.

Ray looked back to Gerard, who had taken up scouring their van for any book they might have left in there, and he was clutching the rosary so hard in one hand, Ray was a little concerned it might snap. He rubbed his own arm and shifted his weight.

“...Wanna sit down?” Chrys called out to him, making room next to herself on her van step.

“Thanks,” Ray murmured, and smiled timidly when she wrapped part of her blanket around his shoulders. He glanced over her face, taking in the half-dazed expression and watching her nose twitch every time she had a heavy breath. “Does anything hurt?”

“I-it’s just...a little hard to breathe, is all,” she explained. “Just a little.” Her arm pressed up against his, and she curled her fingers around his hand to squeeze it gently.

Ray turned his face away. “You know about chrysanthemums?” he thought aloud, dreading the silence.

She blinked at first. “I mean, I’ve heard of ‘em.” A smile peeked through her worry, curious for him to continue.

“They originally came from China.” Ray shrugged. “People used them to symbolize life and longevity, although white ones specifically represent truth.”

“Yeah?” She nudged him. “That’s pretty cool, Ray.”

When he met her gaze again, he squinted, then smirked. “You knew already.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you telling me right now. I know there’s not a whole lot you can do at this very second, and it’s sweet that you’re trying to keep the situation...lighter.” She reached out to a pocket on the door, and rummaged around for a second until she pulled out a book wrapped tightly in a leather cord. She untied it and started very carefully flipping through the pages. They were all mums of different color, dried and pressed, about the size of a half-dollar. “I usually use these for personal decoration, but you may need it right now.” She handed him a few white blooms.

Ray gazed down at them in his palm, and he smiled sadly back at her. “Thanks. You’re really special, Chrys.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I am.” She chuckled at first, until the weight of the situation fell hard on her shoulders, and her eyes filled up with tears. She buried her face in her hands, and tried to keep her sobs as quiet as possible.

Ray stayed quiet, and gently pressed his hand over hers.

She smiled shakily, and turned his hand over. “You’ve got strong hands,” she croaked. Her tumb traced over one of the lines in his palm. “And a big heart.”

“Can you see that in my hand?” he asked genuinely.

She sniffled hard, nodding. “See? This line right here--” She traced over it again. “--it’s so long, it slides right off your hand like it’s trying to circle around.”

Ray bit his tongue. He realized, in that moment, that she could have very well been taken if she wasn’t protected. Regret washed over him, making his throat feel tight. He should have been kinder to Mikey. He should have protected him, too.

Chrys breathed in deeply, and she nodded in understanding. “Were...were you okay with him being here with me tonight? Putting aside the...this.”

“What? Yeah, Mikey’s--” Ray scoffed. “Mikey likes people. There’s no stopping that, and he’s always safe.” He stared out across the parking lot, though, chewing on the corner of his mouth. “God, I hope he’s okay right now.”

“You’re gonna find him,” she said as red and blue lights started flashing over their faces. She coughed lightly, turning her head away from Ray. “Guess my new ride’s here, huh?”

“D’you want me to come with you?” Ray offered. “I often find hospital visits better with company, but that’s just me. It’s also okay if you need some time by yourself.”

“Ray.” Chrys took a deep breath.

“Trust me, those guys are already halfway through a search and rescue plan, I’m sure. And I wanna find him as much as any of them, but...I’m worried about you, too.” He glanced back at the others. “I think they’d understand.”

Chrys considered it. “Can I see your phone?” she asked instead, and when Ray handed it over, she started fiddling around with the contacts list. “I’m gonna add my number in. You can check up on me later, but right now, I’m not the one that needs you most.”

Ray nodded. “Thank you.”

When the paramedics approached Chrys, Ray got out of their way and returned to the group. The night chill had started setting in again now that he didn’t have the blanket around him anymore.

“Is she okay?” Brian asked Ray, making him jump slightly.

He rubbed his arm and nodded. “She will be. Didn’t tell me much about Mikey, though, it must’ve all happened so fast.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Brian pat him on the back. “We should probably split before people start asking us questions.”

Ray turned to watch Gerard again. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but it was clear enough he and Frank both still weren’t sure what to do with themselves. “The arboretum. That’s the people who take care of the Sunken Gardens, right?” he asked Brian. “We should go back and talk to Iris again.”

“In the morning.” Brian opened the driver-side door. “Father, Frank. Come on. We gotta get back to our rooms.”

Gerard gripped Frank’s arm hard and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah-- good. We’ll find him.” His eyes turned to the ambulance, and he held his breath as Chrys was carried away on a stretcher. The lights illuminated his wet face. “Is she...gonna be alright?”

“Yeah, she promised me. I offered to go with her, but--” Ray’s voice trailed off, and he glanced back at the pressed flowers. “We need to focus on Mikey.”

“Fuck. Okay.” Frank pulled Gerard back into the van. “She said they were here for Mikey. What does that even--  _ fuck. _ ”

“I know.” Gerard swallowed. “It’s not like we’ve ever been here before, or know anyone. But...” His breaths quickened. “I don’t know. I don’t have a good feeling about that woman. Iris.”

“Join the club,” Bob grumbled.

*

Back at the motel, Gerard flipped through the pages so hard, most of the sheets of paper suffered creases or micro-tears. He was panting through his nose, his eyes frantic as he tried to find some sort of help, anything, but Ray could tell he wasn’t actually reading. It was probably the only comfort he could grasp onto right now; Ray couldn’t blame him for that.

“We’re gonna find him,” Ray thought aloud, for both their sakes. “Alive.”

“We never should’ve let him go off on his own. Fucking...stupid, what was I thinking?” Gerard snapped the book shut and tossed it onto the table with a hard thud before slamming his face into his palms.

“Gerard. Take it easy, this wasn’t your fault.” Ray lowered his head, even though his conscience agreed fully with him. “Mikey’s done this sort of thing dozens of times before without consequence.”

“I’m supposed to be looking out for him! That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to do all of this, so that I could make sure he was safe with me.”

Ray inhaled deeply and took an extra moment to think over his words. “You’re a really good older brother. Shit, I wish either of mine were half as awesome as you are. And I know you may not feel like it right now, but Mikey still knows. He knows you’re gonna find him.”

“No.” Gerard bit his tongue. His hands were folded against each other so hard, his knuckles were white. “Of course we’re going to find him, but I let him down. I wasn’t responsible enough with him.”

Frank rested a hand on Gerard’s thigh. “You didn’t let him down. You’re only thinking about this because you’re afraid, and...yeah, of course you’re allowed to be. But reflecting on regrets isn’t what’s gonna save him.”

Gerard threw himself to his feet so he could pace the room. “This wasn’t supposed to happen! The other people weren’t attacked like this. It wasn’t even in the same fucking place,  _ how _ did they find him?!”

“Gee...” Frank’s voice cracked. “What if this was what he was trying to tell us?”

“What? When?” Ray asked.

Gerard shot Frank a look that looked far from calm. Ray couldn’t tell if it was more of an expression of anger or fear, but the look clicked in his head. “Oh. Oh...god dammit.”

Frank and Gerard turned to him. “What?” they both asked.

Ray inhaled deeply through his nose. “Mikey...while you guys were out collecting posters and articles on the victims, he...stopped by the room. He wanted to tell me something, probably about something he might’ve felt or saw or--” He lowered his head. “--I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t give him the chance to tell me.”

“Why?” Frank’s voice rose in anger.

“What, you couldn’t figure it out through your weird telekinesis you guys do?” Ray spat back.

“Now’s not the time to get at each other’s throats, please!” Gerard stopped pacing to face the two of them. His feet were spread in a small stance, and he tented his fingers together over his mouth. “I let him go with Chrys. His feeling connected with her, he thought she was going to be in some sort of trouble, maybe she was supposed to be the next victim.”

“Or he was,” Frank interrupted him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

Ray shifted uncomfortably. “But Mikey’s the one who convinced her to come here, to Lincoln. If he got a feeling that she was going to be in danger, why would he lead her to it?”

“To protect her?” Gerard guessed, and sat back down. “We should’ve just fucking stuck together. I shouldn’t’ve--”

“No, we’re not doing that shit. Remember?” Frank cut him off.

Ray remained quiet, but he empathized with Gerard too well. Mikey was nearly begging him to be with them tonight, and he refused. He  _ angrily _ refused, at that. “Fuck,” he exhaled. The others nodded in solidarity.

Nobody was in a clear mindset for the rest of the night. Nobody really got any sleep, either; they’d continued scouring books for clues, but nothing jumped out as relevant to the case.

Ray lay flat on his back with a hand tucked behind his head. Nothing really felt real, except for the sounds of shifting on the bed beside him. The sounds of Gerard holding back sobs as Frank whispered to him. Ray wasn’t sure what he was saying, but he knew what it was about. When he turned his head, he saw their silhouettes huddled together, arms wrapped tightly around each other. Frank might have been stroking Gerard’s hair or rubbing his back, Ray didn’t bother to look closer. All he knew was that a hollowness tore itself through his core, and it physically hurt. In his ribs, in his eyes-- he shut them as tight as he could and felt a thin, wet trail slither down his temples.

When the sky got lighter, they moved all their stuff into the van and returned the motel keys to the front desk. Brian was able to get a partial refund for the nights they weren’t going to use, which was a tiny victory in his book. They drove over to the campus where Iris was already by the doors waiting for them. They hadn’t called her in advance; she was just there.

“Goodness, you boys look like you’ve had quite the night,” she said when they got closer to her. She held a key card in her hand, holding it out to Brian. “This will get you inside the building and the dorm you’re using. If you would follow me, please.”

The borrowed dorm was on the second floor. There wasn’t much inside it besides basic furniture and a working TV; they could definitely work with it.

When Ray got all his own stuff inside, he stepped out onto the balcony and scrolled through his contacts and held his thumb over the call button when he reached Chrys’s name. It was a reasonable hour, and he figured it was difficult to get sleep in hospitals anyway, what with all the tests nurses always had to do to the patients at weird hours. Which then made Ray wonder if Chrys even had the energy to talk to him, then he realized he was just giving himself reasons to ignore her, and that was the opposite of what he promised her. He exhaled and pressed the button.

It went to voicemail anyway, and Ray was the smallest bit relieved. When the phone beeped and allowed him to leave a message, he inhaled again. “Hi, it’s Ray. I hope you’re alright, um, we still haven’t found Mikey yet, but we’re moving closer to a location where we think he might be. I’ll let you know when we get him back safely...it’d be nice to hear that you’re safe, too. Okay, then.” He hung up and stared at his phone for half a minute, then shifted his weight and returned to the van to grab his things.

Through the rest of the day, it was another round of asking everyone on the grounds if they’ve seen Mikey, despite his not being anywhere near the Sunken Gardens. They had even less luck than the first time, which made everyone even more distressed.

Ray wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “If we won’t get answers from the people here, we could get answers in other ways.”

“How do you mean?” Brian asked.

Ray looked to Frank and Bob. “Willing to break into some places?”

“What kind of places?” Gerard asked skeptically.

“The storage rooms and sheds? A place like this has the space to make their own poisons or spells on an industrial grade, and that’s probably where they’d most likely hide it.”

“We’re not going to do it in broad daylight,” Brian stated. “They’re probably watching us wherever we go now.”

“I don’t like this idea, but if it gets us closer to Mikey...so how late should we wait until we come back here?” Gerard asked anxiously.

Brian looked out among the trees. “Midnight. Gives us a small amount of time to rest. We need to be at our sharpest, and last night was...rough.”

  
  


As the night approached, Ray was still bereft of sleep. He tried, God he’d tried to keep his eyes shut, but his chest was too tight and it was difficult to breathe, and there was no way he could tell anyone else, or he’d disturb them. He ended up sitting in the corner of the room, staying as quiet as he could with one of Gerard’s books in his lap.

Frank awoke with a startle, gasping as he pushed himself to sit. Sweat was heavy in his temples, and he looked around the dark room, eventually falling on Ray’s phone light.

Ray closed the book in his lap and turned the light off. “You okay?”

“I saw Mikey,” Frank responded, nearly cutting him off.

Ray sat up straighter. “What do you remember?”

Frank’s chest shuddered, and he sniffed hard. “Um...hold on. He-- he didn’t look good. He--” Even in the dark, he made it easy to notice the distress weighing heavier on him. “He’s so scared.”

“Do you remember him saying anything? Or where he was?”

“He’s alone.” Frank shook his head slightly. “He kept telling me he doesn’t wanna be alone anymore. And-- and he asked me if it was okay to...let go. But I told him no.”

Ray swallowed. “Where was he?”

Frank could only shake his head again. “It was really dark and cold. And misty.”

_ Misty. _ The answer hit Ray, nearly sending him into a panic. “I need to get a book from the van,” he said, and reached over the bed to his own bag and felt around for his respirator. His mind was screaming at him to wake the others up and tell them the answer he found, but he was afraid of them getting hurt in the process. He should have waited for the others. He should have waited until they could go together, like they’d planned. But Mikey’s life couldn’t wait. He didn’t look back as he quietly left the room.

His mind was racing a mile a second. He still had no idea what Iris was even up to, but at least he had an idea of where Mikey was now. Running down the stairs and out the door, he made sure there was nobody else outside. There weren’t supposed to be people around, after all, but Ray could never be too careful. He dodged floodlights when he moved around the dorm complex and kept an extra watchful eye when he approached the rows of trees. Before he actually walked through them, though, he put the respirator on.

From there on, he moved with caution, sneaking around tree trunks just to make sure nobody was hiding in the darkness in waiting, but it was all clear so far. The lights were on in one of the greenhouses, and he swallowed hard. Mikey could be there. He was alone, but this could be the only chance in getting him back.

Ray continued on to the front door and tested the door handle. It wasn’t locked, but it seemed sticky enough that the door didn’t want to open for him without force. It didn’t want to open without making a sound, but he took his chances anyway. With a small clank, he got it open enough to slip inside as quietly as he could. Just as he expected, the air inside was overrun by fog, thick enough on its own with only a visibility of ten feet, it was only that much worse in the dark. Even with the filtration, the heavy scent of florals and greenery got through to him, and now they just smelled sickly. Every step was slow and deliberate, and he had to keep his anxiety in check. Using the flashlight on his phone didn’t help a huge amount. He tried not to depend on it anyway, lest someone else catch him sneaking around.

Ray reached out until his hand touched one of the long tables that helped shape the rows. He could use it as a guide, though it took him a few more deep breaths for him to keep walking forward. From the distance, he could hear some sort of voice, but the words were far too muffled. But the farther he went along the path, there was a glow in the fog-- a sharp light. Ray took a second to realize that there was another door at the end of the greenhouse. He tried turning the knob, and was shocked to find it unlocked. But there were people on the other side; he couldn’t just run in carelessly. Instead, he peered through the window.

Iris and what Ray only assumed were the rest of the arboretum crew were standing around, seeming to be watching something. Well, everyone was watching Iris, but she was standing in the way of whatever was so important. She was only in the way for a few more seconds, before she stepped out of the way and revealed Mikey slumped over, tied down to a chair. Maybe he  _ could _ run in carelessly after all, because once he recognized Mikey’s thin frame, the door was thrown open and he was hovering over the mostly-unconscious body.

“Mikey?!” Ray shook his shoulder. Mikey’s eyes were open, but he was absolutely motionless, save for the slow rise and fall of his chest. There were deep bruises painting his chest and limbs under the thin hospital-like gown over his body. His skin was chilled over. “Mikey, wake up! Mikey!” Ray pressed his hands against Mikey’s jaw, brushed his hair out of his face, shook him again, but there was still no response. If it weren’t for his faint vital signs, Ray would have started fearing for Mikey’s life. When Ray started feeling tugs against his arms, the others in the room trying to stop him, he broke the zip ties holding Mikey’s wrists down.

“I’m afraid if you’re looking to save your friend, Raymond, you won’t be able to.” Iris grinned. There was a glow to her pupils, enough to bring out the look of the monster she really was. “Thank you for bringing him to me.”

Ray kept his eyes on Mikey. “Hey, you’re gonna be okay. Don’t listen to her,” he told him, and reached for a greenish clear vial, tearing the cork out as he jerked away again from being grabbed. His hand worked Mikey’s mouth open, and he poured the contents of the vial in. “Mikey. Mikey, wake up now.” The hands got more forceful, pulling Ray back without mercy. “MIKEY! Wake up!”

Mikey’s eyes fluttered, and he was able to move his head from one side to the other. His eyes began to roll up as Ray screamed his name, which made his stare shift to him instead.

When they held his arms down, they pulled the respirator from off his face. He still jerked out of their grips, but his vision flashed when something cracked across the side of his head. “Mikey--” he choked out, and got one last look of him before things went dark again. The air around him grew cool and sweet, and when he pushed himself to his hands and knees, his conscience gave out.

_ “Is he hurt really bad?” _

_ “He’s starting to wake up, give him space.” _

_ “Holy shit, Ray--” _

Ray’s fingers wrapped around something solid, something warm. He gripped it tighter when he realized his strength was coming back to him.

“It’s okay, Ray, we’re right here.” It was Gerard’s voice, and once Ray’s eyes opened, Gerard’s relieved, pale face sharpened into clarity. He was also holding Ray’s hand. “Thank God you’re okay. We were afraid you were taken, too.”

Frank was half-hovering over Gerard’s shoulder, his expression more wrought with worry. Ray empathized the more his thoughts returned to him. If he was in Frank’s shoes, he would’ve felt better if Mikey was the one back with them. “M’sorry,” he mumbled, running a hand through his hair. He tensed and inhaled a hiss.

“Careful, you’re concussed,” Gerard told him. “You got hit at some point. Iris found you and called us as soon as you were safe.”

Ray blinked. “She did?” His brow knotted. Something didn’t feel right, he didn’t feel completely safe, but he couldn’t remember  _ why _ . “Shit, where did she find me?”

“In the tree display.” Brian sat on the floor close to Ray’s head, oh, Ray was laying down on a couch in what looked like an office breakroom. The walls were a pale tan; there was an uneasy bleakness to the small space. It smelled slightly damp, and sweet. He couldn’t see much else with everyone else crowding around him, yet somehow being in the room made his stomach turn. “Toro? Don’t conk out on us again, buddy.” Brian laid the back of his hand over Ray’s forehead.

“Sorry,” he said again, a little clearer, then turned his face away from Brian’s hand. “I’m good, I think.” His brow knotted hard; something about what Brian said didn’t feel completely right. He remembered green, but at no point had he left the arboretum, he was so sure.

“Hey, why the fuck did you go off on your own last night, huh?” Brian asked sharply, snapping him back out of his thoughts. “Why did you tell anyone, either? We have plans that we stick to, and we really can’t fucking afford to lose you.”

“That’s a first,” Ray thought aloud before he could stop himself, but he immediately shrank back. “I’m sorry...didn’t mean that.”

Gerard looked sort of hurt. “We always need you.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “So you gonna tell us about your little side-quest?”

“Did you find anything about Mikey?” Frank couldn’t help but ask, though he had an uncharacteristic mousiness to his tone.

Ray understood; he was just as worried. And with that worry only came frustration. “I-- can’t remember.”

“What were you even thinking?! After one of us went missing, you think it was a good idea to break off from the group?” Brian’s voice got firmer.

Ray shook his head. “I was-- there must be some sort of clue that I just...” He stammered, his voice trailing off as he tried to think. He leaned over as his breath got heavier, and he could feel a tremor growing in his hands. “It was dark. The air was--”

“He’s fuckin’ turning green,” Frank noted, and backed up to grab a trash can. Nudging Gerard and Brian aside, he placed it beside Ray’s feet.

Gerard stepped back and bit his nail. “We’re stressing him out,” he muttered, and turned toward one of the windows.

Ray’s skin felt sticky; he wasn’t hydrated enough to break out into a full sweat, but his abdomen clenched as he leaned over and gagged, spitting up bile into the trash. Brian sat beside him and kept his hair back, careful of the sizable bump on his head.

The door opened again and Iris stepped in with another man trailing close behind her. “Good heavens!” she gasped quietly.

“Should we call an ambulance?” Gerard asked.

Simultaneously, Ray and Iris said “No,” though Ray’s voice sounded like it was dragged across an unpaved parking lot a few times. Brian’s jaw was clenched like he wanted to speak up, but he bowed his head. Once Ray could breathe again, he looked up at Iris that must have been in some sort of anger or hate, because Iris’s reaction was one of fear. Ray sat up slowly again, and panted. “I’ll be okay. I feel a little better.”

The man behind Iris got closer to Ray. “Please, give him some more space.” He was holding an old-fashioned Gladstone bag and set it down on the floor in front of Ray. He opened it and pulled out a pen light. “Alright, Mr. Toro, just focus on my finger if you can.”

“Who are you?” Ray asked, completely disregarding the request and staring at the man’s face instead.

He didn’t seem to mind; he just smiled softly and waved the light from one of Ray’s pupils to the other. “My name is Dr. Fenton, Iris called me down here to help you.” He clicked the pen light off and set it back in his bag, and pulled out a stethoscope. He pulled Ray’s wrist closer to him, keeping his index and middle finger pressed to Ray’s pulse.

Ray pulled away harshly without thinking, and swallowed thickly. “I think I wanna go.” He looked back up to Brian helplessly. “Can we go back to the motel or something?”

Brian hesitated and folded his arms. “I don’t think that’s a great idea in your current state.”

“Just help me up, I’ll be fine.” Ray pressed down against the sofa’s arm and used it as leverage to get back on his feet, but Bob cut in to stop him. “Help me up!”

“Dude. Just take it easy,” Bob told him firmly. “We’re right here with you, we’re not going anywhere.”

“I want to be anywhere but here.” Ray sat back down against his will and leaned forward, hugging his stomach.

At some point, Gerard had taken Mikey’s glasses back out just to hold them in one hand. He side-eyed Iris as politely as he could. Iris noticed. “Could we have another moment with him alone?” Gerard asked quietly.

“Take all the time you need.” Iris nodded and gestured for the doctor to follow her back out of the room.

Brian pressed a hand to Ray’s knee. “What’s going on?”

“I dunno. I just-- something’s up with this fucking place. Something really sinister, and I’m pissed because I can’t remember  _ why _ .” Ray clicked his tongue.

“It’ll come back to you. You just woke up from an injury, you just need to chill out for a few hours,” Bob told him.

Frank bounced on the balls of his feet. “So...you don’t know if you found anything out that might help us find Mikey?”

Guilt pulled at Ray’s stomach as he shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I...I have a terrible feeling that I might’ve, and, like, maybe the clue was taken from me.”

“Okay, so let’s get it back,” Frank countered.

Gerard took a deep breath. “We will. Can we please just let Ray catch his breath first? I’m still terrified for my brother, but we have to take care of each other, too.”

“I’m fine, Gerard.” Ray eyed him, and huffed.

Brian straightened his posture. “There’s something about Iris. You guys heard the way she was just as quick to shut down the idea of an ambulance, right?”

“Fucking finally, you guys learned your common sense!” Frank hissed.

Ray nodded. “That’s why I wanna get out of here as quick as possible. You guys know she’s been weird since we first met her.” When he glanced to the floor, he’d noticed the doctor left his bag behind. He opened it and searched through the items inside, it looked like stuff an average doctor would carry around, but he dug in deeper and found a few vials. They weren’t labeled, but when he cracked one open, the smell of almond was enough to get his stomach turning again.

“S’that poison?” Bob asked. Ray nodded. “We should get out of here.”

Gerard’s thumbs rubbed over Mikey’s frames. “...We shouldn’t.” When everyone turned their eyes to him, he took a deep breath. “If there’s something going on with Iris, wouldn’t it be easier to stay closer and take a look around for anything out of the ordinary? And...y’know. We shouldn’t be moving Ray around too much either, obviously.”

“I can’t just lay here!” Ray hissed.

The room went quiet for a moment.

“Fucking think for a second. Remember when she looked all sketchy when Mikey wasn’t with us? She was looking for  _ him _ or something, specifically. Chrys even said whoever took him that night was there  _ for him. _ ”

“But why Mikey?” Bob asked.

“Does it matter why at this point? We just need to get him back,” Frank spat.

“I know, guys. We’re all frantic about this, but we have to keep it together. Toro, you lie the fuck down. I’ll stay with you while the rest of the group tries to pick up where Ray left off.”

Ray frowned as he lay on his back again, folding his hands impatiently over his chest. “Something happened last night. Something bad. It had to be something to do with the victims, fucking  _ fuck _ . What if I found someone and they took that away from me?”

“Okay, so where were you?” Frank asked.

Ray fought not to roll his eyes. “I’m thinking, fucking...hold on.” His hands lightly scratched at each other as he tried desperately to scour the bottom of his mind. “It wasn’t exactly the tree display, but it had to be close to it. The-- the place was foggy.” The side of his head throbbed again, but he refused to show it.

“What about before?” Gerard spoke up. “Right before you...left for that place. What were you doing?”

“It was right after I woke up from the dream,” Frank answered for him. “It had to be. You didn’t actually go to the van.”

“Wait, what dream?” Gerard asked, concern etching in his features.

Frank’s mouth opened, but he held back on his answer at first. “I...think he was reaching out to me, or something. I was gonna tell you, but then we got the call about Ray.”

“Jesus Christ, guys.” Brian hung his head. “Okay, well it already happened, and Ray’s back with us.”

“You said the place you went to was foggy?” Frank pointed at Ray. “It was like the dream. You knew where it was.”

Ray nodded, his tongue poking at his lips. “Wait. Okay, wait. Fog. The greenhouses. Iris said she mists the greenhouses at night with some sort of special formula. And-- and that must’ve been some sort of protection against whatever she did to Mikey.”

Brian frowned. “You should have told us.”

“I know, Brian!” Ray huffed. “I’m sorry. I told you it won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, I know. Because you’re not gonna be left alone until we find Mikey. I dunno what is it about you recently, but it’s like you forgot you’re part of a team.”

Ray’s face flushed as he rolled further into the sofa. “M’sorry,” he muttered again.

Brian took a deep breath, and nodded. “As long as you know.”

“We’re happy you’re okay, Ray,” Gerard spoke up timidly. “And whatever it was you figured out, we’re gonna find it again. There was something in his eye that suggested he was already onto an answer, but he didn’t have a chance to say anything when Iris opened the door again.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

Gerard nodded, his smile shifting to look more forcefully polite. “Thank you. We should probably get Ray back to the room, though. Thank you so much for bringing him back to us.”

Iris nodded. There was something about the newfound sparkle-- no, the  _ glow _ in her eyes. that seemed so much more serene, and it scared Ray. “I’m so relieved that he’s alright,” she said, resting a hand over her heart.

“Can we get Ray back to the room now?” Frank asked the others as calmly as he could, which wasn’t very. Subtlety was never his strong suit.

“Are you sure you don’t want him to get looked over?” Iris offered quietly.

Bob was already slinging Ray’s arm over his shoulder. “We’ll be okay, Ma’am. Ray’s pretty durable, he just needs to sleep it off properly.” The others nodded along.

“Very well.” Iris moved aside and let them leave the room.

Ray tried his hardest to walk on his own, but found his legs weighted down and grew more thankful for Bob’s help the further they moved. He kept his eyes shut at the harsh sunlight when they made it outside. Gerard stuck to Ray’s other side, trying not to get in his way or accidentally trip him, but Ray nudged him away. He used all his willpower to climb the stairs when it came to it, and by the time they got to the door, his head felt like it was caving in on itself.

“We’re almost there, Ray, no worries.” Gerard opened the door for him and hurried to get him a glass of water while Bob set him down on the new sofa. At least this one was a little softer, with padded arms. Gerard somehow appeared beside him with the glass. “Need help?”

Ray shook his head and sat up enough to drink. He didn’t finish it; he was too tired to and now sleep was finally sounding like a better plan. The others were watching him sympathetically, and it made him feel small. He hated it. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

“Sorry, Toro. Just--” Brian collected his thoughts. “Things are gonna get better. We’ll make sure of it.”

“We’re gonna find Mikey,” Frank added. “And kick Iris’s ass.”

“Moreso the former than the latter.” Gerard bumped shoulders with Frank. “C’mon, we got greenhouses to investigate.”

Brian pulled up a chair close to the sofa. “Toro. You don’t really think that you’re not important to us, do you?”

Ray’s chest deflated. “...No, I don’t think that. I’m just scared for Mikey, and I’m scared about what I can’t remember. You all make me feel wanted.”

“Okay. Because you’re super smart and resourceful.” Brian pressed his elbows on his knees.

Ray stared blankly up at the ceiling. “We should go back to the Gardens, I think. Maybe there’s something we missed. Maybe that’s where they’re making their cyanide, it’d be smarter for them to do it off-campus maybe.”

“I could take Gerard--”

“You could. Or.” Ray raised a brow. “I could instead. Brian, I’m serious, I’m not that badly hurt. I’m just desperate to find Mikey.”

They stared each other down for an uncomfortable period of time, until finally, Brian dropped his head and groaned. “Fine. We’ll go. This better be fucking worth it.” He held a hand out, upright. “But you fucking sleep for a few hours first.”

“Deal.” Ray closed his eyes.

  
*

“Okay, just don’t get too close to the flowers. I’m assuming there’s gotta be some sorta sprinkler system here, and I don’t want you getting blasted in the face by whatever chemical.” Ray hugged himself as he walked slowly down the path. He diverted to the right, different from the straight path he took when they first checked the place out.

Brian stuck to Ray’s side, almost annoyingly so. “Right. Tell me how we’re supposed to figure out if they’re using the same stuff here as the greenhouses?”

Ray’s jaw shifted. “Where there’s a water system, there’s gotta be a water tank closeby, right? We check that out--” Something in the distance rustled. It could have just been an animal, but Ray put himself on alert anyway. Brian stepped in front of him. “Let’s not freak out so easily,” Ray muttered.

“Kinda hard not to when Iris is undoubtedly onto us, dude.” Brian continued forward, and all went quiet again. “I’m startin’ to regret bringing you out here.”

Ray stopped and shook his head. “I don’t know how else I can convince you that I’m fine. I’m grateful that you’re this fucking concerned, but really. It’s not as bad as you think it is.”

“Then how bad is it?” Brian asked.

Ray opened his mouth to answer, but another voice cried out in the distance. It was merely a yelp, followed by a harsher rustling. Both their eyes went wide, and they cautiously walked in the direction of the interruption. Ray turned his phone light on and shone it on a body, weakly writhing under an azalea bush. A thin body with mousy brown hair and pale skin, hiding his face.

“Mikey!” Brian called out to him in relief, and ran down the path as fast as he could.

Mikey’s eyes widened and he stumbled back so harshly, he knocked himself on his feet. “STOP!” he cried out, covering his arms with his face. “Don’t come any closer!”

Ray followed behind Brian until he stopped, and Ray cautiously kept going with his hands raised. “Mikey, it’s just us. Where’ve you been?”

“I-- I don’t--” Mikey curled up on himself. Dirt covered his bruised arms and legs, as well as the thin white hospital-adjacent gown. The bridge of his nose had deep, cool shades bursting out over the base of his forehead and around his eyes. “I don’t know. Who are you?”

Brian frowned as he noticed more of Mikey’s body, how beat up it seemed. “Just Brian and Ray. You...know who we are, right?”

Ray turned back to Brian in hesitation. It would make sense now that Mikey would have his memory stolen, but he didn’t want it to be true. “Shit,” he said anyway.

Mikey peeked over his arms and squinted hard at them. Gerard still had his glasses, so they could only imagine how much he was struggling to see. Especially now that there wasn’t much natural light. “No. I...I don’t know...anyone. Anything.”

Ray and Brian inched slowly closer. “Hey, we’re not gonna hurt you,” Ray said softly. “We’re your friends.”

“Wait. I’ve heard your voice before.” Mikey turned his face to Ray. “You-- you were there, weren’t you?” He shifted another few inches away from them. “Are you one of them?”

“No! No, Mikey-- I was trying to get you out of there.” Well, Ray still couldn’t really remember everything that had gone down that night, but he would never believe anything outside of trying to get Mikey back with the group. “I’m so sorry I didn’t. That I couldn’t.”

Brian got close enough to kneel down and rest a gentle hand on Mikey’s shoulder. “Can we help you up? We have a place for you, that you can rest. It’s not safe for you to be out here by yourself.”

Mikey flinched away at first, but he sat up and kept his head bowed. “Everything hurts...” he muttered, hugging himself.

“It’s okay. We’ll take care of you.” Brian gently brushed dirt off his gown. “There are others who’re gonna be really happy to see that you’re alive. Is that okay?”

Mikey whined in hesitation quietly, but eventually he nodded. Brian sighed with a grin and shrugged his hoodie off to lay over Mikey’s shoulders. 

Ray bit his tongue and smiled to himself. Even without his memory, Mikey was naturally skilled in stealing people’s clothes. “Can I help?”

As Brian helped Mikey back on his feet, Mikey shied away and hid his face on Brian’s shoulder. “Just unlock the van for us, thanks.” He tossed Ray the keys, letting Mikey lean on him. He could barely stand on his own; Brian had to wonder how he’d even made it all the way out here.

It was difficult for Ray to watch him, especially since he just wanted to pick Mikey up and hold him until he stopped hurting, but at least he was safe again. He was back where he belonged, and their biggest problem was laid to rest. Now they had the problem of getting Mikey’s memory back, which was marginally less panic-inducing than fearing for his life. He took a deep breath as he exited the garden and unlocked the van’s side door.

Brian and Mikey carefully got up the steps, and Brian sat Mikey down on the middle seat. “Jesus, Mikes. What did they do to you?”

Mikey pulled his knees up to his chest, curling his toes. “There was a woman there. I remember her.” He shuddered harshly. “She kept calling me special, and that... _ it _ would be over soon. I think she meant to kill me.” His hands rubbed at the defined, deep purple and blue lines around his wrists.

Ray’s heart sank to his stomach. “Mikey...”

He shut his eyes. “What were you doing there? You were so close, you...did something. Made me drink something, I think.”

Ray blinked as he tried to think. “I don’t know, but I can find out. Whatever it was, it’s gotta be missing from my kit. I’ll let you know right away when we get you back to our room.” He got in the driver’s seat and started the engine.

Brian shut the door and let Mikey curl against him. “Ray would never do anything to hurt you or put you in danger.”

Mikey let out a shaky breath. “If you say so.”

Ray’s chest felt like caving in. Mikey didn’t trust him at all; there was no way to convince him that their encounter wasn’t malicious. It only worsened when he remembered how he spoke to Mikey in the motel room, and he was half-relieved nobody was in the passenger’s seat because God knows how miserable he must’ve looked then.

The drive back to the college seemed to go by in a blink. Ray was paying attention to the road, of course, but time felt like it had stopped, or ceased existing. By the time he parked, he just sank into his seat and stared through the windshield.

“Toro, come on,” Brian knocked him out of his stupor, which only made Ray feel worse. Mikey looped his arms around Brian’s shoulders after the sliding door opened again, and he struggled to place his bare feet on the loose rocks below. Brian tried his hardest not to sigh, and hoisted Mikey onto his back to carry him to where the pavement was solid. “Ray!”

Ray remained in the van for another few seconds, grunting to himself before finally getting out and locking the van back up. “Sorry,” he mumbled back, and followed them inside the hallway and up the stairs to their door. Since Brian’s hands were full, he unlocked it and opened up, but it was in that moment when he realized that none of the others knew that Mikey was back. They all thought Ray and Brian had been out harvesting, so Ray immediately looked to Gerard’s face first.

Gerard wasn’t facing the door at first. Frank was, sitting on the bed, breathless. “Gee--” he said in disbelief, leaping forward to get closer. He stopped as Mikey pressed himself back against Brian.

Gerard sat up from his corner, and his eyes widened. He pressed his hands over his mouth. “Thank God, thank God you’re okay!” he sobbed, and rushed to take Mikey’s face in his hands. Frank was at his side as well, getting a closer look at him.

Mikey yelped and jerked out of his touch, hugging himself again. Brian held him steady.

Gerard jumped slightly as well, his grin vanishing in an instant. “I’m sorry, Mikey, I just--” He choked on his words, suddenly unsure what to do with himself. “How do we help you? What’s going on?”

Mikey glanced between Gerard and Frank, then hunched his shoulders and tilted his face down so he didn’t have to look at them. “Feelin’ a little crowded right now.”

“What?” Gerard whispered. “But...Mikey. It’s  _ me _ .”

Mikey shook his head with a scowl. “I’m sorry if that’s supposed to mean something, but it just doesn’t.” He stumbled a bit when he was guided actually across the threshold, since he’d been bombarded before he could even get inside.

Ray closed the door quietly and leaned up against it.

Frank swallowed hard and watched as Gerard crumbled before him. “Mikey, we were terrified for you,” he thought aloud, taking Gerard’s hand. “We did everything we could to try and find you.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Mikey tried to look anywhere that wasn’t at either of the two in front of him. But everywhere he turned, there was someone else facing his direction. “It’s kinda hard to breathe.” As he spoke, he swayed and he blinked rapidly a few times.

“Mikey,” Frank said, and helped to catch him when his body collapsed. Gerard reached out to hold him as well, stroking his hair away from his face. “How do we get him back?”

“It’s Iris.” Ray slid his thumbs in his pockets. “I dunno what she used yet, but she fucked hardcore with his head. Once I figure out whatever spell she used, then I can work on a counter-spell. Clearly, she’s used local plants, so it won’t be that hard to find--”

Brian squinted. “We can figure this out together, Toro.”

Ray thought back on what he said, and rubbed his neck. “Yeah-- sorry. That’s what I meant. Oh. Spell.” He reached for his kit and opened it to go through all the contents and find out what was missing.

Mikey was laid down on one of the beds, and started to stir back into consciousness. He twitched in Gerard’s arms, inhaling sharply.

“It’s okay, Mikey. S’okay,” he whispered, and sniffled. “You’re safe.”

“We should really clean him up.” Frank chewed on a nail, and headed to the bathroom. “I’ll go set up the shower so he can just sit down in it. Make it easier on him.”

Ray sat back as he stared down at his kit. “Healing,” he said quietly. “It was a healing shot.” His eyes darted as he remembered seeing the vial in his hand, the way he forced Mikey’s mouth open. He touched his own face, then searched his bag. “My respirator’s gone.”

“Did you lose it during whatever happened?” Brian asked with concern.

Ray nodded. “Yeah. I remember parts of it.” He turned to Mikey. “I can’t say for sure what they did, I mean...the ritual or whatever, but I remember his eyes. They almost turned up to God.”

Mikey’s eyes fluttered open again, only staying half-lidded. He coughed, shoving his face into the top blanket.

Gerard tried easing Mikey’s head into his lap, but Mikey refused. When he backed up and forced himself to sit, his lips were tinted red.

Brian knelt down in front of him and took his face in his hands. “Do your stomach or lungs hurt at all?” he asked.

Mikey nodded. “Both.” Beside him, Gerard folded over and ran his fingers through his hair.

Brian nodded. “Okay. Well, we’re gonna get you cleaned up and try to get something in your stomach before you go to sleep again.”

Mikey let out a crackly sigh and nodded, flinching when Frank opened the bathroom door again. “It’s all ready, I’m just gonna get Mikey some clothes,” Frank said, and rummaged through Mikey’s things to hand him a shirt and sweatpants.

Mikey mumbled something that sounded like ‘thanks’, and Brian helped him into the bathroom, leaving him to shower on his own.

“You think he’s gonna be okay on his own?” Gerard asked, unable to look away from the door.

“He made it all the way from the campus to the gardens,” Ray said.

Gerard nodded, chewing on his lip. “I think...I’m going to call the cardinal and update him on our situation. This is important.” He stood up, stood in place for a few seconds, then stepped outside. Frank tried to follow him, but Gerard shook his head before he closed the door between them.

They all stood around in silence for the first minute, only the sound of the pipes filling in the space. “So what else happened to Mikey?” Frank asked.

“Iris took it. His-- his power, I guess, whatever you wanna call it. She took it from him. She was gonna kill him.” He knew she was only a hair’s away from being successful, and the reminder made his hands shake.

“So how do we get it back?” Frank inched closer to Ray.

“I’ll figure it out,” Ray assured him.

Gerard re-entered the room, looking a little more put together. He slid his phone back in his pocket and smiled weakly. “Howard’s going to be around in the morning to look over Mikey.”

Frank’s eyes widened. “Are they gonna take him to the Vatican?”

Gerard shook his head. “Well, it’s not official. But they said because he’s been exposed to the unnatural forces here, they’ll need to make a report on him.” Before Frank could respond, he held up a hand. “I’m not going to let them take him away, alright? He’s scared enough as it is, I don’t want the Vatican scaring him any further.” A whole new anxiety etched itself onto his face, and he leaned back against the door.

“What, what would they do to him?” Frank asked carefully.

Gerard chewed on his lip. “I’m...not allowed to say. They wouldn’t hurt him, though. But they have their way of dealing with things.”

Ray fiddled with the clasp on his kit quietly. “I’ll work on something for him as fast as I can. If I have a cure, they’re not gonna have any reason to send him away.”

“Thanks, Ray,” Gerard said softly.

When the shower turned off, everyone tried not to divert their attention to Mikey as to not overwhelm him. The bathroom door cracked open, and he leaned against the frame, quietly catching his breath. “Is it just the injuries or has my breathing always sucked this bad?”

Gerard struggled to keep a distance from Mikey. “You had it pretty bad as a kid, but grew out of it. It’s probably just the injury now.”

Mikey just gave an annoyed look. “Can I go to sleep, please?” He extended his arm out.

Brian stepped up to help him. “Yeah. You can finally sleep now.” He helped Mikey to the bed and pulled the blankets down for him so he could crawl in, and he tucked him in gently. “Does that hurt at all?”

Mikey curled up, half-burying his face into the pillow. “I’m okay as I’ll get, thanks.” He hardly lasted another minute awake.

Relief washed over Gerard, caught between seeing Mikey finally getting some rest and being able to approach him again without getting scared, even if he was unconscious. He knelt by the bedside and pulled out his rosary, and held Mikey’s hand in his other.

Frank sat down next to him without saying a word, listening to Gerard sniffle.

“Do you think...” Gerard shut his eyes tight like he was trying to focus. “...that I can heal him? Like I did with you?”

Frank couldn’t help but smile at the sentiment. “S’worth a shot, I’d say.”

  
  


Ray was greeted with an ache in his shoulder and neck upon waking. He vaguely remembered falling asleep on the floor, and by all the open books still in front of him, he had a clearer image. He hadn’t fallen asleep so much as passed out trying to find any connections to Iris’s spell. Sitting up caused his joints to crack, which relieved some of the tension, and he looked over at the others.

Gerard was already awake and dressed. Frank was also awake, sitting beside a sleeping Mikey on the bed, and Brian was doing his best to wake up.

“Where’s Bob?” Ray asked, pushing his curls back.

“Went to get us coffee.” Gerard fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve. “Howard should be here in a bit.”

Ray nodded, and started closing up the books and set them in a messy stack by his bag. He jumped, as did everyone else, at the sound of Mikey gasping awake.

“Where am I?” he asked, shoving himself away from Frank.

“Hey, hey-- it’s okay. You’re safe,” Frank told him, taking his hand again to prevent him from falling off the bed. “Mikey, it’s okay.”

_ “Where am I?” _ Mikey repeated, sharpening his tone. His eyes frantically darted around at the walls.

Frank shifted his body to face Mikey better. “Well, in broad terms, you’re in Nebraska. We’re staying at a college until we can figure out how--”

“You took me BACK?!” Mikey threw the blankets off his body and stumbled onto his feet. His breathing quickened as his back hit a wall, and he yelped. “I need to leave. I need to get out of here before she comes back.”

“Mikey! We’re not with Iris, okay? We’re actually gonna catch her today. We’re gonna put a stop to what she’s doing,” Gerard spoke up. “Please, please just sit back down. You’re hurt.”

“Yeah, no shit! That’s all she’d been fucking doing to me! And you brought me back to her!” Mikey backed himself into the corner.

“We’re not gonna let her lay another finger on you,” Frank said with conviction, his own breath starting to shake. “Mikey, listen to me. Do you remember the last time you saw me? When you reached out?” He closed a few inches of distance between them; not close enough to touch yet but enough to cut off any escape options. “You asked me if it was okay to let go. I know you were scared, but I told you we were coming to get you. I told you that you needed to wait for us.”

Mikey stammered, his eyes wide.

“We got you, and we’re not letting you go again.” Frank got closer again, his hands ghosting over Mikey’s face, hardly touching like he was afraid Mikey would crack under him. “It’s okay.”

Mikey didn’t push him away, he only whimpered and shut his eyes. “It was dark. I could hardly see anything.”

“But you heard me, didn’t you?” Frank was careful to avoid the purple and blue areas over Mikey’s nose as his thumbs brushed his cheekbones. “C’mon. Sit down.”

Mikey leaned his head timidly against Frank’s palm before he nodded, and when Frank gave him room, he returned to sit on the bed, clutching at the rumpled blankets.

The doorknob jostled, then, and Bob entered the room. “Hey, uh...I guess I brought company.”

“Good morning, Father,” Howard said.

Gerard stood up straight. “Good morning,” he responded, glancing back over to Mikey. They’d just got him to calm down. “Mikey, this is Agent Howard. He’s with us, he’s here to make sure Iris didn’t cause any permanent damage. Is that okay?”

Mikey hunched over, turning his face away from the door.

“I got coffee for you, if you’re interested.” Bob approached the bed and held out a cup to him. The smell was enticing enough to keep him mollified. 

Howard and two other men invited themselves in. Before they got too close to Mikey, Gerard stood in their way. “While you’re here, I figured we could also go over the other missing people. We suspect they’re probably also being kept somewhere here, so when we go to catch Iris, you can freely search the place. Right?”

It was impossible to tell where Howard was looking with his sunglasses still on. “Of course.”

Gerard nodded and handed over the missing posters. “Familiarize yourselves with these faces.”

Mikey watched them over the lid of his coffee cup, and his shoulders relaxed. “You guys are gonna help the others?” he asked without thinking.

“That’s the plan,” Howard answered. “Is it alright if we examine you?”

Mikey’s mouth pinched. “Is it gonna be invasive?”

“We just want to look over your injuries and ask you some questions. We don’t have the necessary resources to do anything invasive.”

Mikey sipped pensively, slowly, then placed the cup in his lap with his hands still around it. “Fine,” he agreed. Frank took his cup and he pulled his shirt off. The purples and blues were so prominent against his whole torso, for a moment, it was difficult to spot his true skin color.

Thinking back, Ray had never seen Gerard truly angry until this moment. He was silent with his chin slightly pointed downward. His brow was creased, dark eyes fixated on Mikey’s discoloration with narrowed lids. His veins were prominent against his temples, the muscles of his jaw tight, yet somehow the rest of his body seemed calm enough. It was a quiet fury, Ray thought, and he wondered what exactly he was thinking about doing to Iris then.

Gerard was a pacifist, by nature. Ray nearly felt guilty about imagining his breaking point. This had to be it; his little brother looking so broken like this? Ray couldn’t blame him. "We need to go," Gerard spoke up. "What time does she get here?"

"When we looked up her schedule, we found she enters her office every day at 7. She should still be there now," Howard told him, unreactive to Gerard's state.

"Okay, so what are we waiting for?" Frank added.

Ray's eyes pointed back to Mikey. "Would you mind if we leave you for a bit?"

Mikey didn't answer verbally at first, but he was clearly scared. "You swear you'll put a stop to her?"

"We will." Gerard took a deep breath. "I want this overwith as soon as possible."

Brain seemed on the fence, but resigned himself. There was nothing he could say to change Gerard's mind. "Okay. Let's catch her."

*

When they stormed her office, Iris sat at her desk, her hands folded primly. She hadn’t flinched, her posture straight and her expression serene. Maybe she was waiting for them, or someone, anyone at all. Either way, Bob started looking around the room for a trap, but nothing was set up. It was just a normal room.

“What have you done to my brother?” Gerard demanded. “We know you hurt him.”

Iris tapped her thumbs against each other. “Father Way, firstly, I want you to know that your brother is one of the most special people in the world. He’s given the world a gift, and he’s made my life’s work complete.”

“What have you done?!” Frank loomed forward until he was in front of her desk. Bob gave a small tug on his sleeve to hold him back. “He doesn’t remember anything!”

Gerard gently lowered Bob’s hand, silently giving Frank permission to continue if he wanted.

"Franklin. I would have loved to study you." The glow in her pupils was there, faint like dying embers. Her smile curled more as Frank’s fists clenched. “So it seems he’s returned to your good graces alive, is that right? Very intriguing...he truly is the strongest of them all. Or perhaps it was your associate there who kept him from ascending.” Her stare pointed to Ray.

Ray shuddered. “Ascending? What does that mean?”

“Michael had a gift. We’ve been collecting people like him, those with Sight into the beyond. Those who can endure enough to touch the gates of Heaven before passing over,” Iris leaned back in her chair with her eyes on Frank again, and one of her hands disappeared under her desk.

“You give back whatever you stole from him--” Frank started to say, teeth grit and took a step to start circling her desk, but Bob tugged on Frank’s sleeve again.

Gerard took a step around the other side of her desk. “We’ve got the place surrounded, Iris. You’re going to the Vatican.”

Iris’s expression softened. “You may not believe it, but it’s heartwarming to hear that your brother made a safe escape. And now, I must make my own.”

Before Gerard could even get within reach of her, he stopped in his tracks and his eyes widened in shock. He saw the sudden dead glaze in her stare, her lips wrapping around a black metal barrel, and her mouth lighting up. He’d screamed at some point within the short span, they all had, and he shut his eyes before an explosion of  _ red _ hit the wall. Everyone’s ears started ringing, and Bob, Ray, and Brian, were dazed for a few seconds.

Gerard’s hands pressed as hard as they could to his face, and he fell to his knees. His body twitched harshly when he felt something touch him, and he screamed again before realizing Frank was curling his arms around him. Frank looked like he was checking his body, like Gerard was the one who got shot. Gerard’s face was wet; he felt himself leaving stains on Frank’s shirt when he was pulled back into his chest in a protective embrace.

Ray and Brian were stuck staring at the horror before their eyes. “Shit,” Ray muttered when he started getting his hearing back, then slammed his fist back against the wall. “SHIT!” He stepped to the side, turning away from Iris, then looking at her again. He wasn’t sure what to do with his body. “Mikey.”

Brian shook out of his daze. “What?”

“She was the fucking key to fixing Mikey!” Ray rubbed his hands over his face, groaning as he tried to think. “No. No, fuck, we have to be able to do something. We can’t-- we  _ can’t _ \--” His stomach was flipping and he wasn’t sure whether or not he was going to be sick again. Mikey’s livelihood was on the line, he couldn’t lose him. None of them could. “I don’t fucking have anything on me--”

“Maybe she has a book about it, we can find instructions...” Bob thought aloud.

“There’s no time for that! They could take Mikey back to the Vatican, we need to figure out how to get him back soon.” Ray started to approach the fresh corpse, then he stopped mid-way. “Fuck.”

“She might have something in her desk,” Brian spoke up.

Ray pressed his hand over his mouth as he desperately tried to come up with a solution. He forced himself to stare, glaring at her for betraying them one final time, until he noticed something. She was crying. “Her eyes...” He pulled an empty vial from his back pocket, but his hands were shaking.

“What about her eyes?” Brian asked.

“She was talking about sight! And-- and all the victims that were found...and Mikey, they all had glowing eyes.”

Brian cringed. “You wanna take her  _ eyes?” _

“Not quite.” Ray pulled his hand back. “Let me do my thing, Schechter. I’ll just tell Howard what I did and pray for forgiveness or something.” Although when he looked back to Iris, the fear came back in full force. His lungs staggered, and he nodded to himself. Reaching to grab her hair, he tilted her head downward and held the vial at the bridge of her nose. It took a minute or two, but he managed to catch half a vial of her tears, despite his hands shaking violently.

Brian stepped up beside him and helped to keep Ray’s hands steady. “You got this,” he croaked, and when the vial was full enough, he popped the cork in. “Let’s get outta here now. Someone has to call Howard, I guess.”

Ray nodded, swallowing hard. He tried his hardest not to shut his eyes, and he barely remembered even walking out of the room, but Brian’s hand was steady on his back, grounding him in reality. They approached Gerard and Frank, still knelt on the floor. Gerard was still crying, but he was silent with a dead stare. Frank slowly helped him to his feet.

“Gerard?” Brian said firmly enough to catch his attention. “When you get the chance...you need to call in your guys.”

“I’ll make sure he does it,” Frank answered for him.

“Well, it’s not like any of us have anywhere to go right now,” Brian said flatly.

Ray side-eyed him. There was still the whole matter of getting back to Mikey, but he understood needing to do one thing at a time.

“Dude, give him a moment,” Bob bit back.

“I know,” was all Brian could say to that, and he took a deep breath.

Gerard hugged himself tightly. “Brian’s right. This-- this shouldn’t wait.” He looked like a ghost himself, running his fingers deeply through his hair. “Okay. Okay, call Howard.”

“Here.” Frank pulled out Gerard’s phone and gently placed it in his hand. “You can do it, Gee.”

Brian shifted his weight on his feet. “Let’s all step outside. I don’t think I’m incorrect in assuming it’s kind of a good time for a cigarette break?”

Ray nodded, and followed behind the rest of them as they shuffled out the emergency exit and huddled in a broken circle. Gerard remained a few feet away so he could make his call, but the rest of them watched him stammer his way through explaining to Howard about the gist of what had happened.

When he hung up, he inhaled a long drag, looking almost pained as he did so. “They should be here in 15 minutes or so.”

“Did they say anything about Mikey?” Frank asked, bouncing on his heels anxiously.

Gerard kept his gaze down at his feet. “They’ve got someone staying behind at the dorm to watch over him. They said he was doing better today, but it’s probably best if he moves around as little as possible.”

“Yeah,” Frank tried to smile, but he just couldn’t.

Howard arrived just in time when they were all down to their filters, and his team already got to work closing off the place before any of the arboretum employees showed up. He approached them with a stone expression behind his sunglasses. “Father Way.”

“...Howard.” Gerard tried to match his expression, but he was still shaky and struggling not to sink into his mind.

“You should be receiving your next assignment sometime within the next 48 hours.” Howard pulled the familiar envelope, which made Gerard seem even more distressed. How was he going to talk about what he saw this time? How could he talk about not being able to protect his own brother?

Nevertheless, he met Howard’s face and nodded curtly. “Thank you.”

Ray turned his back and folded his arms. 48 hours to get Mikey’s memory back. He remembered the vial in his hand, making him turn back around. “I had to...” he started, his throat drying up. “I had to move the body. Slightly.”

“Why?” Howard asked calmly.

Ray held the vial up. “To get Mikey back to himself. I only bent her head down...the-- the rest of the scene is intact.”

Howard pulled a notepad and pen out from the other side of his jacket and took a few notes down. “It’ll be handled. If there’s anything else you need, we can give you a form to submit to evidence.”

“Right.” Ray knew he’d never have enough time to get anything else from Iris’s body, but he figured he had everything he needed from her now, thankfully.

“Do you require anything else from us?” Gerard asked, pulling the cigarette pack out again just to fiddle with it. He itched for another one, but wasn’t sure if he’d need it more now or later.

“No, Father Way, thank you. You should probably go see to your brother, right?” Howard smoothed out the lapels of his jacket.

Gerard nodded without missing a beat. “Let’s go see Mikey.”

Once Howard was out of sight, Frank stuck to Gerard’s side like glue, lightly poking at him every so often and fiddling with his cuffs. Gerard let him, his mind still didn’t seem to be all there yet by the way he would shudder quietly and not directly look at anyone. Even when they returned to their room, he shot a quick smile at Mikey before keeping his gaze down.

Mikey shivered when he glanced over everyone. “Something bad happened,” he thought aloud, and his shoulders sank.

Despite the melancholy between everyone, Ray cracked a smile. “Well, depends on your perspective. You...can still read people well.” It was a great sign. There was definitely hope Mikey was still in there somewhere.

Mikey swallowed and turned to Brian. “Can I ask what happened?”

Brian stepped forward and sat down next to Mikey on the sofa. “Iris is dead.”

Mikey hugged Brian’s arm. “I’d say that’s pretty good...but I can jump to the conclusion that she...died in front of you?” Brian nodded, and Mikey took a deep breath. “At least it’s over. Right?”

“Yeah.” Ray closed the door once everyone was inside. “How are you?”

Mikey just shrugged. “They gave me some stuff to dull the pain, so now I’m just tired again.”

The agent that remained to watch over Mikey removed a pair of nitrile gloves. “We should probably help him back to bed. You mind?” he asked Brian.

“Not at all. C’mon.” Brian stood up first, then offered his hands to Mikey and pulled him carefully and helped support his weight. “You okay?”

Mikey clutched harder to Brian’s wrists. “Vertigo.”

“S’okay, you can lean on me.” Brian held still until Mikey could stand on his own, and he pulled Mikey into the bedroom. The agent closed the door so they could talk in private.

Gerard sat in Mikey’s place on the couch, staring in yearning at the door. He knew he should have been the one in there, but it was way too difficult to focus on anything yet. He tucked his hands between his knees and hunched over, just trying to breathe.

Frank set a glass of water on the table in front of him. “Things are gonna get better from here on out,” he whispered. “Those people are gonna be found, and they won’t be hurt anymore. And we’ll find Mikey’s memory in no time.”

Gerard nodded. “Thanks,” he muttered, and downed the water.

Brian stepped back out of the room and let the agent leave, then closed the door behind him. “He’s asleep now,” he said with a heavy exhale. “He’ll be okay.”

Ray pressed his elbows against his knees. “Did he tell you anything?”

Brian shrugged. “Not really. There really wasn’t a lot he could remember, and, um... he was in a lot of pain. His body’s in pretty bad shape, but there doesn’t seem to be anything that might cause permanent damage. Still...after we get his memory back, a hospital trip might be in his best interest.”

“Shit.” Bob shook his head. “What do you think they did to him?”

Ray scowled at the floor. “It looks like they beat him an inch of his fucking life. I gotta start working on this now, time’s wasting and we didn’t have a lot to begin with.” He chewed on his thumbnail for a few seconds before he finally grabbed his kit to start rummaging around the various jars and vials. So far, he’d only made protection spells and traps, but there were plenty of plants that were known to have effects on the brain. He just had to figure out which plants weren’t gonna hurt Mikey further.

“Toro...” Brian laid a hand on his shoulder. “You should rest first. We all do, today was-- well, you don’t need me to tell you.”

“I’m not tired.” Ray shrugged his hand off. “Please, I’ll go crazy if I don’t do something right now. You should really worry about Gerard, he’s taking it the hardest.”

Brian frowned. “You’re undermining yourself. You had a head injury, and I know you’re really determined to help Mikey, but...I don’t want you burning yourself out.”

Ray’s fingers curled into his palms, his nails burying into his skin. “I  _ can’t _ , Brian.I got the stuff I need to fix him, and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. Mikey’s dependent on you right now, so for all our sakes, just keep him from running off and I’ll fix him.”

Brian huffed. “I think this place is really fucking you up, too.”

Ray bit down on his tongue so hard it bled a little. “Whatever. The quicker we get this done, the quicker we can leave. This place is fucking us all up.”

“You really need to stop generalizing things like that.”

Ray threw his hands up. “I’m sorry! I’m just trying my best here, and Mikey’s life has never been threatened like this before. It freaked me out. I’m not sure what else you want from me.”

“Maybe trying not to take all of this on yourself is a start.” Brian shrugged.

Ray craned his neck back and sighed. “I know. I...I know. It’s almost over, though.” He picked at different dried plants and powders to set them aside, including the flowers Chrys had gifted him. Staring down at the white petals, he took a deep breath and was filled with a comforting warmth.

There was practically no room to fuck up this time, so Ray knew he had to think extra carefully about this. While he got to working, everyone else started to get their own things together. Considering the woman who allowed them to stay here wasn’t around anymore to grant them further access, they figured it was best to have everything ready to leave, just in case.

Ray remained hunched over his materials for hours while the others scanned over books to see if there was any correlation with memory loss, though there wasn’t much luck.

Eventually, Mikey had woken up again and called out for Brian, but everyone slowly moved into the bedroom to stay together. Gerard helped carry Ray’s things and stayed with him, helping with tiny, menial tasks like putting certain plants in an order and adding essential oils when needed.

Mikey had the top blanket wrapped around his shoulders as he stared with frustration at the TV. “I can’t see shit,” he thought aloud, leaning back against the wall. “I really never had contacts or anything?”

“Sorry, but those glasses had served you pretty well up ‘till now. I’m sure Gerard’s working on a way to get you a new pair.” Brian awkwardly pat Mikey’s knee. “Our top priority is getting your memory back, though.”

“Mikey sucks when it comes to preparation,” Mikey grumbled, picking at a loose thread.

Ray sighed heavily, grinding into his pestle and mortar harder. Gerard looked up at Mikey sympathetically from the book in his lap. “You’re better at organization than you think, perhaps you just don’t apply it to yourself more.”

“Not like I would know, anyway,” Mikey straightened his back. He fidgeted for a few seconds, and eventually shrugged the blanket off and crawled off the bed. “I need some water or something, my throat hurts.”

“Easy,” Brian was quick to his feet, helping Mikey as he stumbled slightly. “You okay?”

Mikey gripped Brian’s arms tightly, not expecting the wave of fear of falling to hit him like it did. “Sorry--” he stuttered, swallowing.

“You shouldn’t be moving around too much.” Frank appeared cautiously in front of Mikey, holding out a cup of water for him.

Mikey turned his face away, his mouth twisted in frustration. “Thanks,” he muttered, and extended his hand out so Frank could place the cup in his grasp, and Brian helped him sit back down.

Gerard and Ray watched Frank hold back pain. Frank’s jaw shifted, and he stared down at his feet with a furrowed brow. “Yeah, no problem,” he responded with a hint of sharpness, and gave Mikey his space again. “How goes the potion thing?”

“Not a potion,” Ray reminded him, forcing a smile. “But, uh, we’re on the right track. It’s just a little difficult when we can’t really do trial runs.”

“Ray knows his stuff, though. He’s really close to a solution,” Gerard added hopefully. “It’s gonna work.”

Ray breathed slowly, and looked over at Mikey. “Yeah. I know.” Anxiety settled deep in the pit of his stomach; he hated being in such a crowded room. No, he hated being in a room with a version of Mikey who had no idea who he was and refused to even look at him. He hated  _ feeling _ Mikey so fucking miserable, especially when nobody, let alone he, could do jack shit about it. Without thinking, he set the mortar down. “Sorry, I need a minute.” Before anyone could say anything else, he hurried outside to the balcony and closed the door quietly behind him.

Taking a few gulps of fresh air, Ray gripped the railing and leaned forward. He hated feeling like this, being so angry at himself for barely keeping it together when everyone deserved to be more worried than him. He couldn’t afford to be this scared right now, and yet he couldn’t shake the fear away. As he stared down at their van, he chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Come on,” he told himself. “You’re gonna get him back. You  _ have _ to get him back.” His body continued to fold forward, his elbows pressing against the rusted metal as he buried his face in his hands.

Behind him, the door opened and closed again, and footsteps thumped around to Ray’s side. “The midwest really does suck,” Bob said.

Ray nodded, unable to think of any other way to react.

A beat of silence paused, as a breeze brushed past them. “Seriously, how can we help you? Anything that can be done to make this process easier, you know we’d do it.”

Ray groaned. “It’s not  _ me _ who needs the help. I keep telling you guys that.”

“No offense, Toro, but you keep telling us that because nobody’s fuckin’ buying it. You’re about to keel over.” Bob leaned on the railing carefully, not quite trusting it to stay upright. “How’s your head doing, by the way?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care,” Ray thought aloud.

“We do.”

Ray raised his head and looked up at Bob, then straightened his posture. “I’m sorry. I really am almost done with this thing, it’s just--” He shook his head incredulously. “I don’t know, I’ve never been this scatterbrained before, and it’s the worst timing ever.”

“Yeah, because you took  _ blunt force to your skull _ .”

“It’s not just that, Bob!” Ray snapped, then sighed sharply and raised his hands at chest level for a moment. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m scared of fucking this up, okay? I only get one shot at it.”

“And...that’s driving you crazy now because of Mikey?”

Ray squinted at Bob. The answer was so obvious, he kind of wanted to punch him for asking such a question.

Bob rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, you’ve done shit on the flip of a dime that’s saved our lives before, and you didn’t sweat it this bad.”

“But have you seen Frank and Gerard? If they lose Mikey forever, they’re never gonna be the same. None of us will, but them most of all. This  _ could _ be the time where I fuck it all up.”

“Or it could be the time where you make the cure without any problems, just like you always have, and you bring Mikey back.” Bob sighed. “You need a fuckin’ nap, dude.”

Ray wished he could be angry at that, but the way Bob said it made him laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Okay, well, you could come back inside and we’ll be quiet for a few hours. Seriously.”

Ray stared out at the streets beyond the campus. “It’s hard to look at him, Bob. It’s hard to watch him flinch away from us when we’re trying to help.”

Bob nodded at that. “I hear ya.” He opened the door again, and left it open when he returned inside.

Ray stretched his arms up until his shoulders cracked, and his neck craned back. “No more fucking around,” he muttered to himself, and returned inside as well.

Mikey smiled timidly at Ray. “You okay?”

“I will be, once you’re better,” he admitted honestly. “But we’re gonna do this.”

Mikey’s eyes widened. There was something different about Ray now, something stronger that Mikey didn’t see before. Well, it was more a feeling than being able to see, of course. His gaze followed him as he sat down amongst his crushed up plants, and the room fell quiet, save for the TV.

Ray’s face was creased with concentration, and nobody said a word. They weren’t even really sure if they were breathing, but they all watched him. Ray didn’t even seem to notice, though, until the bed dipped with Mikey’s weight. His knee brushed against Ray’s as he got comfortable, and he leaned forward a little more. “It smells kinda weird, doesn’t it?”

Ray chuckled slightly. “Yeah. Unfortunately, not all the solutions can be pleasant. I always found it a little funny whenever you start whining about brimstone.”

“Yeah, because it’s kind of the worst,” Frank chimed in from the other side of the room.

Ray snorted. “Well, I’m not using it now, so be thankful. But, could you just...” He pressed a gentle hand against Mikey’s chest to back him up a few inches. “It can get a little fume-y, and you’re already in recovery as it is.”

Mikey nodded. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Ray’s voice was soft; his smile spilled through his words. His hand lingered against Mikey’s shirt, spreading his fingers a little more against the fabric and feeling his pulse. It was steady. Real. “I’m kinda glad you’re taking interest.” He was more glad that Mikey was finally comfortable enough to get this close to him as well, but he decided to keep that to himself as his hand finally dropped. “This isn’t actually going to  _ wash _ your hair, per se. The idea is that your scalp absorbs this. Most of the stuff in here is just helping the process, and this--” He held up the red-tinted vial and uncorked it. “--is what’s gonna get you back to normal.”

“What is it?” Mikey asked, squinting.

Ray breathed in slowly. “It’s from the woman who took your memories in the first place. Well, she specifically said she took your  _ sight. _ You have this really cool...I don’t even know what to call it really.”

“Hunches, is probably the closest word,” Frank chimed in again.

Ray nodded. “Yeah. Hunches. And they’ve never been wrong before.”

“So...why did she kill herself over it?” Mikey’s nose scrunched.

Gerard frowned. “Our best guess was that she wasn’t able to handle your gift. It was too much for her, whatever it was she saw, she didn’t find it worth living with.”

Mikey reached out and gripped at the bottom hem of Ray’s shirt, making him flinch. Ray didn’t push him away, though, just glanced around at everyone else to watch their reactions. Thankfully, nobody seemed weirded out, like he feared. “D’you think my own brain will take this gift thing back okay?”

Ray nodded. “Definitely.” His face turned back to Mikey’s hand. “You okay?”

“I think so.” His grip loosened, but he shifted closer again. “Sorry.”

“No. I don’t mind,” Ray whispered, held his breath, then held Mikey’s hand. “We’re not gonna let anything bad happen to you. Promise.”

Mikey’s lips curled in a timid smile. “You’re really warm.”

Ray could hear Frank laugh to himself, which only made him warm up more. “I get that a lot.”

Mikey rubbed his thumb across the back of Ray’s hand. “And soft. And you smell nice.”

Ray’s breath hitched, and without thinking, he held out the vial to Mikey. “Why don’t you do the honors? It’s your cure, after all.”

“You sure there’s no way I can mess this up at all?” Mikey asked. His chin brushed Ray’s shoulder, brow creased anxiously as he held the vial for himself.

Thank God he did, because with him being so close, Ray wasn’t sure if he was able to hold it steady anymore. “Just aim for the bowl, that’s all you need to do. I got the rest covered.”

Mikey gained determination, and he held his breath as he tipped the vial over into the rest of the contents.

Ray continued stirring them methodically. “Good, that was...really good. Thank you.”

“Thank  _ you,”  _ Mikey replied, and set the empty vial down and shifted away from Ray. “So what now?”

“It’s pretty much ready at this point,” Ray admitted, and held the bowl securely as he got back on his feet. “Alright, get a chair and set it up by the sink.”

Gerard tapped his fingers against his thigh. “Hey, Ray? I know you said it’s ready and everything, but...could I just--” His rosary was clutched in his other hand.

Ray got the message easily, and he considered the offer. “You know what, it doesn’t hurt to try.” He shrugged. “The prayers haven’t steered us wrong before.”

Gerard nodded, and he clutched his rosary tight, pressing it to his chest. When he was calm enough, he made the sign of the cross over the soap while Ray stirred it slowly in a clockwise motion.  _ “Resolvo nebula adfectus.  _ Amen.”

Ray’s hands stilled, and he nodded to himself. The air was tense with anticipation and hope, and Ray had to really concentrate on keeping his heart under control. “Alright, you ready?” he asked Mikey.

“I guess so,” Mikey answered, unable to look Ray in the eye. Instead, he just focused on the soap.

Ray nodded. “Alright, then sit down, please.” He gestured to the chair by the sink, hurrying to place a folded hand towel on the edge first to cushion Mikey’s neck.

Mikey reached out to touch the chair first, as if he expected it to hurt on contact, and after chuckling at his own ridiculousness, he sat down and leaned back.

Ray remembered everyone was watching him now, which made the memory of his nightmare all the more present in his brain. He felt sick for a moment, then set the bowl on the counter beside the sink and turned the faucet on. “Just, uh, lemme know if you’re uncomfortable at any point,” he thought aloud, holding his hand under the water until it was warm enough.

“You’re gonna do great, Ray.” Gerard smiled and nodded.

Ray snickered. “Thanks,” he murmured back, and angled the water over Mikey’s hair. He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue as Mikey hummed. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just comfy,” Mikey assured him.

Ray silently exhaled and scooped up the shampoo into his hands after the hair was thoroughly dampened, and he spread it out over his scalp. Ray tilted Mikey’s head back a little farther so the suds wouldn’t slide into his eyes. Mikey had closed them anyway, but Ray couldn’t be over-safe now. Once his fingers really started to get to work, it was a lot easier to find his calm, despite how serene Mikey looked.

In the back of his mind, Ray sincerely hoped the specific way he worked over Mikey’s scalp would be familiar to him; not that he’d tell anyone else, but he’d always been extra attentive to him, pressing and rubbing against his pressure points slowly.

“Wow...” Mikey’s mouth relaxed in a lazy smile. “Okay, this is nice.”

“Yeah, I used to do this for you all the time,” Ray thought aloud, feeling his own face heat up against his better judgment. “Uh, we worked together. I mean, we still do, but our jobs were different than this, heh. The shop was really cool.”

Frank leaned back against the counter. “You were the coolest part of it, Mikeyway. All our best customers came to us because you brought ‘em in. You’re probably the reason that place didn’t close down, if I’m being honest.”

“Yeah...Frank’s right,” Ray agreed.

Mikey cracked an eye open. “Because of me...?” he asked. “Why?”

“Because you were the reason we were always busy. Yeah, we never were like, overbooked or anything, but we always had something to do because of all your connections. You kept us in business,” Brian answered.

Gerard took one of Mikey’s hands. “I don’t think you realize how good you’ve always been with people. They’re drawn to you.”

Pink flushed across Mikey’s cheekbones. “I-I don’t know what to say...” He felt like it wasn’t really fair, the way they spoke so highly about him while Ray was working literal magic on him, it felt too good to be true.

“We’re not expecting you to say anything. Just thinking back on how grateful we are that you’re around,” Brian added.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Mikey responded. Without warning, he gasped harshly and arched his neck and back out. Both his eyes flew wide open, his pupils giving off a faint glow as they started to roll up.

“Mikey! Mikey, stay with us!” Gerard squeezed his hand tight. “Mikey?”

“Just try to hold him still.” Ray pulled his hands away and wiped them off. “The herbs need to set in.”

Gerard and Frank braced both of Mikey’s shoulders while Bob and Brian pressed on his legs. “C’mon, Mikey, breathe!” Frank demanded. He grew more frantic, like he knew what sort of pain Mikey was going through. “We got you. Gee, don’t you have anything to help?”

Gerard stammered, then shook his head. “It’s not the same, Frank,” he answered in a broken voice. “He just needs to endure this.”

Frank’s veins were prominent against his forehead, and he turned back to Mikey. “You’re gonna make it, I promise.”

Tears filled up Mikey’s eyes, and he gave a few violent twitches that threatened to knock him out of the chair, but after a few minutes, he started coming back down. His gasps got heavier and more desperate, and his chest jerked forward with an angry cough. A few drops of blood stained his lips.

Gerard used the hand towel to blot the blood away. “It’s gonna be okay, Mikey, we got you. Just stay with us, I know you can.”

Ray took Mikey’s face in his hands and just held him back gently as he caught his breath.

“Mikey? Talk to us, you okay?” Frank asked shakily.

Mikey let out a sad whimper once the tension completely left his muscles, leaving him in a ragdoll state. He coughed again, quieter this time, then swallowed with a grimace before Ray tilted his head back again to rinse the shampoo out. “Wh’happm?” he mumbled, fighting to stay awake.

Gerard smiled with fear in his eyes. “Hey, how about you tell us. Do you know where you are?”

Ray lifted Mikey’s head up again and grabbed another towel and pat his hair just so it wouldn’t drip. Mikey squinted, his eyes darting from one side to the other, back and forth. “Where the hell are my glasses?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Frank asked.

“Let him get his thoughts together,” Brian gently reminded him.

Mikey smacked his lips together. “Oh-- the van. Chrys. Shit, is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s just fine,” Ray said softly, rubbing the towel behind Mikey’s ears. “What about you?”

“Not...good. It’s like I’ve been awake for a week straight, but like, out of my own body at the same time.” Mikey’s eyes widened. “Did my soul leave my body or something? Fuck, did I mess up a spell?”

Frank chuckled. “No, dude, you’re good.” He pat Mikey on the back. “You...know who we are, right?”

“Yeah, Frankie. Why wouldn’t--  _ oh. _ Oh, no.” Mikey sank deeper against the chair, pressing his free hand to his chest. “Oh, that crazy gardener got into my head. She...”

“Mikey, it’s okay. You’re never gonna see her again, she won’t hurt you anymore.” Gerard ran his thumb over Mikey’s knuckles. “Whatever she did...it’s over.”

Mikey’s chest twitched with erratic breaths, but he nodded. “Okay.” He shifted in the chair after Ray finally pulled the towel off his head. “My body hurts.”

“Let’s lay you down, then.” Gerard helped Mikey up and hugged him gently as he could. He pressed his lips to Mikey’s cheek, grinning. “Don’t you  _ ever _ leave me for that long again.” When Mikey hugged him back tightly, his eyes glossed over.

Mikey leaned his full weight against Gerard and just let himself be hugged. It was nice for the few seconds that his legs could endure, but the promise of lying down soon became more of a need. “M’tired, Gee,” he whined.

“Okay. I got you, s’okay.” With Frank’s help as well, Gerard eased Mikey to the couch and laid him on his back.

Once Mikey got a hold of Frank’s hand, he refused to let go, even when he wasn’t able to keep his eyes open anymore. Frank knelt down on the floor beside him and stroked Mikey’s hair off his forehead. “You did so good, Mikes. I told you that we’d get you back.” When he pressed their foreheads together, Mikey smiled weakly.

*

The process of going through hospitals made everyone sort of stressed, except for Mikey, who was able to zone most of it out. He did get amused when he had to hold Gerard’s hand, even though  _ he _ was the one getting an IV drip. After his tests, he just sank into the bed. “I think everything’s finally come back to me,” he murmured.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Gerard asked.

Mikey fiddled with his hospital bracelet and chewed on his lip. “They kept me in a dark room and they’d hardly talk to me. Well, Iris did. She told me about how my sight was some sort of key to the secrets to Heaven or some wild shit. I don’t believe it, though. I never knew what time it was down there, but every so often, other people would come in and just...fuckin’ wail on me.”

Gerard bowed his head. “Mikey, I--”

“You didn’t do it, so don’t say you’re sorry.” Mikey eyed him warily. “It sucked. A lot. At the end of it, they hooked me up to this thing and-- and  _ shocked _ me like some Victorian asylum patient, and there was this fog--”

“Yeah, we figured out what was in it,” Ray sighed. “It was mainly what fucked up your memory. Mine, too...almost.”

Mikey looked at Ray with sympathy. “But if none of this happened to me, then all those other people probably wouldn’t be free from the same fate.”

“Um, yes they absolutely would have,” Frank protested. “We could’ve figured it out just fine without you getting hurt.”

Mikey shrugged. “Either way, they’re all out of there now."

Frank rolled his eyes and leaned back, his arms tightly crossed over his chest.

“Well, the good news is that I’ll be able to get you new lenses, since we were able to save your frames.” Gerard timidly held them up and gave a small sound of triumph.

Mikey chuckled. “Thanks. It’d be nice to see clearly again.”

Gerard picked at a cuticle anxiously. “So...you reached out to Frank in a dream?” His voice was quiet, unsure.

Mikey glanced at Frank, who didn’t look back at him. “Yeah. At the end of, uh,  _ preparing _ me for the ritual, I started getting...really out of it. Out of my head. I was scared that--” He swallowed hard, pulling at the bracelet now. “--they told me it would be okay. They told me Heaven waited for me, and I...didn’t know if you would agree with them.”

Nobody responded to him. For a moment, Gerard looked hurt, but his expression soon melted into somber understanding. “I can see why you chose Frank, then.” He kept seeming to hesitate, opening his mouth to say something else only to close it again. The process repeated a handful of times.

“No fuckin’ way I was gonna let you just give up like that,” Frank muttered. “I need you around.”

Mikey rolled onto his side and buried half his face in his pillow. “I feel the same.”

Ray chewed on the inside of his lip and bowed his head. He wanted to step out, get some fresh air, maybe, but he couldn’t find himself to move. He just accepted suffering in silence for the time being.

“Anyway. I think I’m gonna sleep for a while. Wake me up when Brian gets my release papers or whatever.” Mikey pulled the thin blanket up to his shoulders and clutched the end of it.

Gerard stepped up to kiss his forehead. “I love you so much, Mikey,” he whispered.

Once Mikey seemed to be asleep, Ray found the strength to get up and step out of the room at least, lingering a few feet from the door. He pulled his phone out again, and called Chrys, pleasantly surprised to hear her answer this time.

“Hello?” she asked calmly.

“Chrys, hey.” Ray leaned back against the wall.

She gasped. “Ray! I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to call back, I had to go through getting my van and everything, but she’s safe and sound. How’s Mikey?”

“Good. We found him, and he’s...good now.”

“That’s such a relief.” She paused. “Can I come visit him?”

Ray turned his head. “Yeah. We’re at the hospital right now, and we’re probably only gonna be here tonight. Got other places to go to, y’know how it goes.”

“Yeah...I do. I can drive over now, if that’s alright?”

“I’ll let the others know you’re on the way.” Ray told her which hospital they were at, and they exchanged a few more pleasantries before hanging up.

Gerard smiled at Ray when he returned to the room. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Chrys wanted to drop by before she hit the road, I hope that’s alright.”

Gerard nodded. “Mikey would probably like that.”

Frank slowly stood up. “I’m gonna go see what Brian’s up to, I’ll catch you later.”

When Gerard had stepped out to find coffee, Ray had pulled up a chair and held Mikey’s chilled hand. His mouth was dry, preventing all his thoughts spilling out. It was both a blessing and a curse, but perhaps more of a blessing when he heard soft footsteps approaching.

Chrys gently laid her hand on Ray’s shoulder. “Hi,” she whispered, beaming her same bright smile from when they first met. It was comforting.

Ray blinked, then ducked his head for a quick moment to rub at his eyes. “Hi, I-- we didn’t expect you to show up. But, thanks.” When he looked back up to her, he smiled back weakly. “He’d appreciate you being here if he was awake.”

“He’s got enough support right here.” She gently squeezed his shoulder. “I just came by to see if all of you were okay. And, um...you know. I was kinda curious.”

“I really wish I could tell you.” Ray sighed, heavy with apology.

She nodded. “I get it. So, I was about to head off for good, but I felt bad about not giving something back in exchange for you guys protecting me.” She reached into a small pocket in her shoulder bag and showed him a dried dill blossom. “You’re a great botanist, Ray.”

“Chrys, we know how hard it is to scrounge up enough money just to eat. You don’t, well, at least don’t let Brian hear this, but you don’t have to pay us.” Ray raised a hand.

As she tucked the flower away again, she rummaged deeper in the bag. “Alright, well, I do have one thing that I can give you, though I can’t really say it’s  _ payment _ if it was yours to begin with.” She pulled out a tightly rolled-up fabric. Ray recognized the color of it right away; it was the shirt Mikey had originally borrowed during laundry day.

The gift made him laugh. “Thanks a lot, this is one of my favorites, actually.”

“I can understand why. It’s really soft.” A faint tint of red flushed across her cheeks, and then her eyes lit up. “Oh! What about a reading? Might help you out in the future.” A box of cards appeared in her hand.

“Yeah. Actually, we could probably use that.” Ray leaned back. “Um, here. I don’t think Mikey would mind.” He stood up to smooth out the blanket at the edge of the bed, considering there were no tables or trays in the small room.

Chrys chuckled softly. “Yeah, that’ll do in a pinch. Thanks. Oh--” She waved a hand when Ray offered her his chair. “It’s better if you sit down for this. And it won’t be for the whole group, it’ll just be for you. These things are pretty personal.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Ray sat back down and settled himself down as she spread the deck out evenly for him. The backs of the cards were mint green with just a thin white border. They reminded Ray more of flash cards from the back than anything, but that only made him more curious. “I pick three cards, right? I’ve, uh, never really done this before, so all I know are out of TV and stuff.”

“Just one at a time. And think it out for as long as you want,” she said quietly.

He nodded, then started to reach out, and pulled back. Would he look stupid if he just let his hand over the cards, would it look like he was trying too hard?

“Take a deep breath,” she suggested. “Your face is all scrunchy.”

“Sorry.” He exhaled a nervous chuckle, then breathed in methodically and let his eyes consider the deck more thoroughly. When he finally reached out, he was more sure than ever, and flipped the card over.

“Eight of swords.” Chrys’s hand moved to rub the back of his neck. “You’ve been judging yourself too harshly, I bet you fight a lot of inner demons, huh?”

At this point, he was used to fighting  _ real _ demons. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. He nodded, chewing on the inside of his lip. When he got a better look at the card, he tilted his head and realized how the light, muted colors matched her own palette so well. He wondered if she colored these all herself. Mikey probably would’ve thought that was cool. He flipped over a second card.

“Ten of cups.”

“Does it matter if it’s upside down or not?” Ray looked up to her.

She made a pondering face, then nodded. “Yeah, it can be pretty important. This one means your relationships aren’t where you want them to be at the moment, or you’re not sure what you want.”

He watched Mikey again, then flicked his eyes down to his hands. “Can’t knock me for tryin’.”

“Just keep it up. Remember, these are just guidelines for improvement, nothing that’s absolutely finite, y’know?”

“Hey, how is he?” Gerard stepped up quietly behind, lingering in the doorway with his coffee cup.

Ray looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Hasn’t woken up yet, but the nurses said he’s still stable.” Without looking back to the deck, his hand reached out and flipped the final card.

“Oh.” Chrys rubbed her chin.

“Oh?” Ray and Gerard both repeated, then Gerard’s eyes lit up. “Oh, neat! Unless...”

“The Star, reversed. Are you a Catholic too, Ray?” she asked without thinking.

Ray responded with an uneasy, uncertain noise. “Agnostic.”

Chrys’s eyes wandered between Ray and Gerard. “Well, your faith is gonna be tested. Or, I mean...just really focus and stick true to what you believe.”

Gerard’s eyes glazed over for a moment, and his mouth pinched. “We tend to have our faith tested a lot. It’s part of what reminds us of what makes it so special.” His face relaxed, though there was a new tiredness to him.

Chrys smiled in return and gathered her cards up, gently placing them back in the box. “It’s been really wonderful meeting your group, but it’s time I hit the road. Best of luck.” She shook Gerard’s hand with both of hers, and leaned down to kiss Ray’s cheek. “I’m really glad I met you, Ray."

“Be safe out there,” Ray told her with a comforted smile, and watched her walk off before Gerard caught his attention once more.

Gerard hugged himself loosely, unable to tear his eyes away from how frail Mikey looked. Even though the monitors beeped steadily, he still reached out and rested his fingers against the pulse in Mikey’s wrist. “I talked with Howard one more time. He gave me an update on the campus and Iris’s team have all been apprehended. They found the victims, too, and they’re all alright.”

Ray sighed in relief. “Are the victims going to the Vatican, then?”

“I don’t know. Considering the amount of people, maybe not. Howard said it was all taken care of, and they’re safe now.” There was a softness in his face that made Ray feel more at ease. When he sat down beside Mikey again, he pulled out the envelope that Howard had given him earlier. He opened it, and the Dictaphone slid out into his hand. “Guess it’s time to put this one on record.”

*

The highway lights came and went in soft pulses. Ray’s eyes were drawn to each one they passed by, trying not to drift off and stare into the open darkness of the night. He was sure everyone was exhausted from being in the midwest already, but he couldn’t help but glower at every cornfield they passed. Sleep wasn’t going to be a thing that would come easy that night, he could already tell.

He jumped slightly when he felt something warm against his arm, and turned to see Mikey awake as well. His hand rested against Ray’s skin. “Mikes?” he whispered. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

Mikey only shrugged, his brow knotted lazily in frustration. “Just can’t,” he muttered back. Clearly, he wanted to sleep. Ray sympathized. “What’re you thinking about?”

Ray stumbled over his answer in a few staggered syllables, then paused to get his mind in order. “The main thing? Just really happy that you’re back with us, and alive.”

Mikey’s fingers fanned out over Ray’s forearm. “You’re the one that found me. That brought me back when I was about to--” He shut his eyes, and pressed his lips hard together, unsure of what word was best to describe the feeling.

“We wouldn’t ever let you leave us.” Ray pulled his arm back enough so that Mikey’s hand was hovering over his own, the appendages only brushing against each other. “I’m so sorry we weren’t able to stop anything from happening to you at all.”

Mikey shrugged. Ray was a little taken aback by the casual response, but then again, it was very Mikey of him to do so. Ray decided it was good to see Mikey shift back into his usual habits. “In retrospect, I broke the Scream rules.”

Ray chuckled, then immediately quieted himself for the sake of the others sleeping in the van. “Yeah, but those rules also state people don’t  _ survive _ if those rules are broken. So I guess the rules are fake.” While he spoke, he bent down and grabbed a water bottle off the floor and opened it for him. “Here. Stay hydrated."

Mikey stared down at it, letting a tired smile curl in the corner of his lips. “Thanks,” he murmured, and sipped it slowly. After years of recovering from hangovers, he knew better than to drink too much at once.

Ray gently rubbed Mikey’s back. “Better?”

“A little bit, yeah.” Mikey took the cap back and twisted it back on, and he just let his head fall back until it hit the top of the seat. “I meant what I said...back at the rest stop. You’re too good to me, Toro.”

Ray blinked, brows raised in shock as he tried to let that process. “I’m...nothing special, really. But thanks. I wish you wouldn’t think about yourself that way, though.”

Mikey’s shoulders stiffened. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.  _ Nothing special _ , pff. If my limbs still didn’t feel like cinderblocks, I’d kick your ass for saying that.”

“Are you in pain? I can get you some stuff for that.” Already, Ray was nudging one of his bags on the floor closer with his foot.

Mikey chuckled. “Classic Toro.”

Before Ray could catch him, Mikey sidled up and pressed his whole upper body against Ray’s. His head buried into his shoulder, and he slid a leg across his lap. “You mind?” Mikey mumbled.

Not like it mattered anyway, since he’d already seemingly got comfortable, and he wasn’t about to push him off. Even if he was still recovering, he’d have Mikey pressed up against him any day, for any reason. He hummed softly, and reached up to thread his fingers in Mikey’s tousled hair and leaned back until his head was pressed against the window. “You comfy?”

Mikey hummed back, and with enough shifting around to adjust, Mikey ended up mostly in Ray’s lap, curled against his chest.

Ray buried his fingers deeper into Mikey’s hair and pressed gently against his scalp, listening to the faint sounds of Mikey’s light sleep. Mikey didn’t usually doze off so easily, but Ray couldn’t begin to think how exhausted he still must have been. It was oddly comforting to hear Mikey’s whispered whimpers, though he tried to keep his own pulse in check when he felt soft puffs of breath against the base of his throat. Ray craned his neck back a little more and stared up at the van ceiling, still massaging Mikey’s scalp while his free arm wrapped protectively around his mid-back.

“Mikey?” Ray whispered, mostly as a test, and Mikey didn’t respond. Ray took a deep breath and parted his lips, but the words got caught in his throat. A deep ache swelled in his chest, around his rapidly-beating heart, and he just exhaled the breath he was going to use to let his thought out. Instead, he just hugged Mikey tighter and buried his nose in Mikey’s bangs. The sterile scent of the spell still lingered with him, but Ray didn’t mind. It was a subtle reminder that they were able to save Mikey in time, and scrubbed that horrid place off of him.

He didn’t keep their faces close for very long; there were four others still packed together in the van with them, and one was still awake. Ray turned his head enough to see if Brian had noticed him, but his eyes seemed to remain on the road. Brian glanced back at him briefly, their gazes catching each other in the quick flash of light from one of the passing highway lights. “You okay, Toro?” he muttered.

Ray swallowed hard. As if his heart was beating fast before, now he was afraid of waking Mikey up again. “Uh...yeah,” he answered hoarsely, and shut his eyes tight. Fuck his emotions, seriously. It wasn’t the right time, it was never going to be the right time for this. Biting his tongue, he just continued to stare out the window and wait for whatever lay ahead for them.


End file.
